Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities: Annotations and images of corals and sponges from the northern Gulf of Mexico from 2017-07-20 to 2021-08-15 (NCEI Accession 0299813)

This dataset provides geo-referenced observations on the occurrence of corals, sponges, fishes, and invertebrates in the deep waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico. This dataset comprises video annotations on the diversity and abundance of organisms observed in 69 remotely operated vehicle (ROV) dives conducted over a five-year period from 2017-2021. Dives took place across the continental shelf and slope offshore Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida at depths ranging from 55 to 2,200 meters below sea level. Data is formatted in an Excel workbook. This data package includes images taken from the ROV video, along with summary reports.

This dataset provides annotations for data originally collected through two projects - the NOAA RESTORE Science Program “Population Connectivity of Deepwater Corals in the Northern Gulf of Mexico” (NA17NOS4510096) and NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, Competitive Research Program “Connectivity of Coral Ecosystems (CYCLE) in the Northwestern Gulf of Mexico” project (NA17NOS4510096).