Palmyra undwater

We've spent the past 7 days conducting surveys and retrieving/deploying oceanographic instruments in the waters around Palmyra Atoll. Here are a few photos from below the water's surface:

The soft coral, Sarcophyton sp.

 

Scientist Nichole Price conducts a Line

Point Intercept survey.

Oceanographer Jamison Gove installs an Acoustic Doppler

Profiler and subsurface temperature recorders.

Layers and layers of corals!

Sea slug (Elysia ornata).

The camouflage grouper (Epinephelus polyphekadion).

Oceanographers Chip Young and Danny Merritt

retrieve the Remote Automatic Sampler.

Threadfin butterflyfish (Chaetodon auriga) swimming

over a carpet of invasive corallimorphs (Rhodactis howesii).

An Acropora sp. thicket in the coral gardens of Palmyra.

A school of convict tangs (Acanthurus triostegus) swoop in

to mow the algal lawns on this section of reef.

An interesting and unusual formation of Acropora sp.

Acropora sp. tables found on the western terrace.

A blacktip reef shark (Carcharhinus melanopterus) cruising near the coral gardens.

A curious Twin-spot Snapper (Lutjanus bohar) comes in for a closer look

while oceanographer Jamison Gove installs a subsurface temperature recorder in the background.

A Napoleon Wrass (Cheilinus undulatus) swims by.

Here are a few of the critters we have found within the Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures around Palmyra:

A swimmer crab (family Portunidae).

A spaghetti worm (family Terebellidae).

A money cowrie (Cyprae moneta).

A fire worm (family Amphimonidae)

A snapping shrimp (Alpheus sp.)

We have seen many interesting animals,both large and small, here at Palmyra Atoll. While always interesting it is time for us to continue on to the final destination of this expedition: Kingman Reef.