Sometimes, real work can be kinda fun. Apologies in advance to those expecting something Firebird related, but I think you'll find this interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYldpqoh0s
Disclaimer:
The information contained herein has been approved for dissemination outside of Shell.
Background:
Shell's Perdido development project is in nearly 8000' of water in the western Gulf of Mexico about 210 miles south of Freeport and 150 miles east of Brownsville. The video segment was filmed by a ROV in November, 2007.
Description:
138 years later, Jules Verne was right!
In Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, there is a pivotal scene where a giant squid* attacks Captain Nemo’s submarine-like ship and a crewmember is devoured by the creature.
Since the book was first published in 1870, many of the French writer’s fantastic ideas about manmade underwater habitats have actually come to pass – and no doubt Shell’s Perdido development in 8,000 feet of water ranks as one of the most far-reaching.
But no less astonishing is a recent video captured by the Perdido team that adds credence to the author’s renderings regarding mythical sea creatures as well.
On Sunday, November 11, 2007, the drilling crew aboard the Noble Clyde Boudreaux was using a ROV to recover the drill string for a well in 7,828 feet of water in Alaminos Canyon when the screen revealed a bizarre, gelatinous creature with a mass of tendrils and a horizontal fin undulating near the well’s marker buoys.
When Patrick Desrouleaux, survey coordinator - geomatics, reviewed the video, he recalls feeling like he’d seen something otherworldly. “It looked like one of the aliens from the movie Independence Day. The creature did not seem spooked by the ROV or alarmed in any way.” The survey crew estimated the creature's length from top-to-tendril-tip as between 20-30 feet.
We asked internationally acclaimed cephalopod (squid) researcher Dr. Michael Vecchione, laboratory director of the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Director of the National Systematics Laboratory/NOAA to confirm the identity of the creature from his office in the bowels of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. (Systematics refer to invertebrate biology.)
According to Vecchione, the squid in the video is most similar to the family Magnapinnidae, recognizable by its 10 arms, bent at sharp right angles and the telltale large fin attached to the mantle.
“The body [from below the fin to where the tendrils join] is not very large,” he says, “about a foot or less, but the arms [8 + 2 tentacles] get very long, up to 21 feet when extended.”
Vecchione is credited with discovering this family of cephalopod in 2001. The discovery is particularly important because the animal was previously unknown. Since that time, squids like this have been sighted at similar depths in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans.
“That such a substantial animal is common in the world’s largest ecosystem, and yet had not previously been captured or observed is an indication of how little is known about life in the deep ocean,” he says.
Dr. Vecchione points out that more people have been to outer space than have visited deep-sea depths of more than 13,000 feet.
“Most of the living space on earth is deep sea,” he says. “Unlike space, which we can ‘see through,’ you can’t see through water. It’s much more difficult to study what’s in the ocean; you can’t visualize it. It’s an alien environment.
“Every time we get a video observation like this one, it adds another piece to the puzzle,” he says. “If we can determine exactly how big it is, that will be important information.”
The Shell video is one of half a dozen video observations that Vecchione has obtained from various sources since he first discovered the species seven years ago.
Squid-sighting videos, including Shell’s, have apparently gone “viral,” that is, they have taken on a life of their own on YouTube in both the UK and US.
If you want to see this squid up close, Dr. Vecchione says you can do it without setting foot offshore. A new deepwater exhibit will open at the Smithsonian Institute in September and includes a full-size version of Magnapinnidae as seen on Shell’s video.
* According to Dr. Vecchione, the squid referred to in Jules Vernes' classic tale is actually of the family Architeuthidae, not the Magnapinnidae captured on video here.
