File:Post0060 - Flickr - NOAA Photo Library.jpg

The Tradition Continues! NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program continued the 200-year tradition of mapping by participating in a ground-breaking expedition, featuring more than a dozen partners.

The Secrets of the Gulf expedition built on previous mapping work coordinated by the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. Sanctuary researchers explored the deeper water low-relief ridges and scarps that connect the various banks along the continental shelf in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, including two of the three banks that comprise the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. Their mission was to observe and document plants and animals that use these 'hidden highways' between the banks to determine how the sanctuary may be affected by events that occur outside its boundaries. University of Rhode Island researchers, led by Dr. Robert Ballard, explored the same areas for evidence of ancient shorelines and the people who may have lived there. They used the sophisticated technology on the Navy's only nuclear research submarine to conduct even higher-definition mapping data of those areas thought to be the Texas/Louisiana shoreline 12 to 20 thousand years ago.