Category

Brain Coral

Brain corals are a group of species that have grooves and channels on their surface that look like the folds of the human brain. Able to live up to 900 years, and growing to 6 feet in height, they are found on the Flower Gardens in the northern Gulf of Mexico, as well as other reefs. High water temperature can cause them to expel their symbiotic algae, bleaching the coral.

Interviews

Narrator: Greg BolandTitle: Snow GlobeDuration: 00:02:32Date: February 12, 2024Greg Boland, a diver and researcher, worked for many years for Texas A&M University, the Minerals Management Service, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy at the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary. In August 1991, he was diving at the Flower Gardens, and was one of the first to witness a mass coral spawning in the Northern Hemisphere, something that reminded him of a snow globe storm.Narrator: Jesse CancelmoTitle: Chart PlottersDuration: 00:01:34Date: March 8, 2024Jesse Cancelmo, a diver, dive master, and boat owner/operator, has often visited the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. Here he tells about the key move that the International Maritime Organization made in 2001, by designating the Sanctuary as the world's first no-anchor zone, a marking that appears on all the electronic chart plotters widely used for navigation. This has been a critical step in protecting the corals and other features that are found at the Sanctuary.Narrator: Kelly DrinnenTitle: Ocean TimelineDuration: 00:02:57Date: May 1, 2024Kelly Drinnen serves as the Education and Outreach Specialist at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, where she has worked since 2004, seeking to make this reef, 100 miles offshore and under more than 60 feet of Gulf waters, more visible and appreciated. Here, she tells how scientists' coral corings at the Sanctuary can help teach and connect with the public. These plugs of ancient coral track the history of the reef and climate over the past 200+ years, in ways that can be directly incorporated in classroom lessons. Narrator: Steve GittingsTitle: Free FallDuration: 00:05:59Date: February 27, 2024Dr. Steve Gittings, the first manager of the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary, and now the chief scientist for the National Marine Sanctuary program at NOAA, rejoices in the current health of the Flower Gardens. However, here he recounts the various risks posed by the reef's future - including sea urchin die-off, lionfish encroachment, disease spread, coastal development, and tourism pressure, all in addition to the rising impact of climate change.Narrator: Emma HickersonTitle: Data and PoliticsDuration: 00:05:00Date: April 30, 2024Emma Hickerson is a zoologist who served as Research Coordinator for the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary from 1997 through 2021. During that period, she helped collect extensive data to guide the 2021 expansion of the Sanctuary to include 14 additional banks and reefs, comprising a wide diversity of corals, sponges, and other marine life. However, she was disappointed to see how politics interfered with the process, and cut the proposed expansion dramatically.Narrator: Emma HickersonTitle: pH and CO2Duration: 00:04:55Date: May 2, 2024Emma Hickerson served as Research Coordinator at the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary from 1997 through 2021. While there, she helped install a pH sensor on the Sanctuary seafloor, designed to help track the effects of CO2 emissions, ocean absorption of carbon, rising seawater acidity, and worrisome impacts on the ability of corals and mollusks to build their skeletons and shells.Narrator: Gary RinnTitle: Mooring BuoysDuration: 00:02:35Date: March 7, 2024Gary Rinn, a sport diver and charter boat operator based in the Freeport area, helped lead and organize a non-profit, the Gulf Reef Environmental Action Team, that installed a network of 12 mooring buoys at the Flower Gardens banks in 1990. This set of buoys has helped protect the reefs from anchor, chain and line damage, and also pressed the U.S. government to designate the banks as a National Marine Sanctuary in 1992.Narrator: G.P. SchmahlTitle: ExplorationsDuration: 00:03:55Date: April 22, 2024G.P. Schmahl is an oceanographer who worked for close to 20 years as Superintendent of the Flower Gardens Banks National Marine Sanctuary, starting in 1999. Here he explains the crucial role that new exploration vehicles, including the Deep Worker one-person submersible, the Navy's NR-1 nuclear submarine, and various Remotely Operated Vehicles, made available through partnerships with Sylvia Earle, Bob Ballard, Woods Hole and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, had to play in the 2021 expansion of the Flower Gardens sanctuary.