Cluster Hiring Initiative

Gulf Extreme Environment Observatory (GEEO)

This unique picture taken from a robotic camera installed on the seafloor by Ian MacDonald, shows a manned submersible from Harbor Branch, the Johnson Sea Link, sampling an exposed gas hydrate mound. The orange flocculent mat on the surface of the mound is chemosynthetic bacteria.

The seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico harbors unique life forms, enormous energy reserves and extreme environments.

The gulf is a greatly underserved area of marine research even though the extraction of its large oil and gas resources and high fisheries yield provide means of facilitating such research. Studies of the gulf could also enhance the economic potential of its resources, while lessening the threats their removal present to the biodiversity of this ecosystem. In addition, the gulf provides exceptional opportunities for case studies in climate change due to ocean/atmosphere interaction.

Photograph taken from within the Johnson Sea Link showing a pore water sampler being deployed by the robotic arm of the submersible. The hydrate mound and tube worms are shown in the background. In the foreground is sampling equipment mounted on the front of the submarine. (Photo courtesy of Laura Lapham, FSU Oceanography Postdoctoral researcher)

Findings from research in these areas extend beyond academic circles to policy makers and the general public, particularly the gulf's energy reserves, which are vital components of the hemisphere's resource base. Recent announcements of huge deepwater oil discoveries further underscore the Gulf of Mexico's economic value and potential environmental vulnerability.

The federal government's Minerals Managements Service (MMS) recently expanded its continental shelf leasing program to include, for the first time, an enormous area off the Florida coast. Offshore sources of oil and natural gas will be explored, but only after the MMS contracts the exploration and inventorying of this area.

The GEEO interdisciplinary cluster puts Florida State University in an optimal position to secure a large portion of these contracts, as well as associated federal research dollars. Studies of the exceptional marine life, which ranges from viruses to giant tubeworm, found in petroleum- and gas-bearing sediments will be supported by these funds.

The GEEO cluster also provides a foundation for research into climate change, global cycles of carbon, and future energy supplies. The costs associated with growing the cluster will be offset by the funding opportunities available through the MMS, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Cooperative Institute, which was recently established for the Northern Gulf of Mexico (with FSU as a partner institution) and has an annual budget of $7 million.

This figure shows a mound of exposed methane hydrate surrounded by tube worms. Methane hydrate is a solid ice like substance composed of a large volume of natural gas locked into a water crystalline structure. Scientists estimate that the energy potential of natural gas contained in sea floor and permafrost methane hydrates across the globe may be as great as the energy potential of all other “traditional” natural gas and petroleum deposits. Methane hydrates are stable at the low temperatures and high pressures found below 600 meters on the seafloor. The tube worms in the picture are microbial gardeners, and exist without mouth, guts and associated other GI tract organs. They cultivate symbiotic sulfide oxidizing bacteria that perform a process called chemosynthesis and use chemical energy to fix carbon to provide food. These bacteria “feed” their tube worm hosts. The reduced chemicals are primarily driven by methane gas, shown bubbling up in the picture. (Photo courtesy of Ian R. MacDonald)

In this photograph the pore water sampler is deployed in a deep sea mussel bed. These mussels are part of a methane-based chemosynthetic food web. The mussels cultivate methane oxidizing bacteria in their gills in a symbiotic relationship. This deep sea food web is completely independent of food fixed from sunlight at the surface. (Photo courtesy of Laura Lapham)

Numerous fields of study are drawn to the Gulf of Mexico and scores of distinguished scientists have been attracted to its extreme environments, including members of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers at Florida State University are among this group and the GEEO cluster, coupled with Tallahassee's proximity to the gulf, provides FSU a springboard to becoming a world leader in the science of extreme marine environments.

Executive Committee