These truly amazing inhabitants of our planet inhabit the waters of the oceans. They chose the seabed as their "home". Who are we talking about? About corals!
Many will say: how can animals be so similar to plants, and in general - are corals really animals? As it is not surprising, but - yes, corals are precisely animal organisms, albeit so unlike the usual representatives of the terrestrial fauna.
The correct name for these creatures is coral polyps, there are about 5,000 species in the world. The variety of shapes and colors of these animals is simply amazing, just look at these patterned weaves, it's just amazingly beautiful!
But let's look at corals from a perspective scientific approach, since these are animals, then they must eat, breathe, move, reproduce ... let's try to find out how they do this.
The structure of these benthic organisms is rather primitive. The body of a coral is a cylindrical formation with numerous tentacles at the end. In the scientific classification, the Coral Polyp class is divided into two subclasses: Six-ray corals and Eight-ray corals.
This bushy coral is a whole colony of polyps. Hiding among the tentacles of a coral polyp oral cavity... The digestive system in these animals is represented by the "mouth", pharynx and blind intestinal cavity. It is in the "intestine" of the polyp that there are special cilia, thanks to which the process of vital activity of the whole organism is carried out.
These same cilia create a constant stream of water in the cavity of the polyp, and with water the animal receives oxygen for breathing, nutrients (the smallest living organisms, small fish and plankton), and also throws waste products back into environment... As you can see: special respiratory, sensory and excretory organs in coral polyps no. But what about the ability to move around?
Coral polyps can make movements, but not too actively, as far as the skeleton device allows them. These animals can only slightly bend their body, as well as move their tentacles.
Sex cells in corals do not mature in separate organs, but directly in the body cavity. As you can see, the device of these animals is quite simple, however, this does not prevent them from leading a full life on seabed.
Coral polyps (if we consider a separate organism) are tiny creatures. One polyp grows in length from a few millimeters to one to two centimeters.
But a colony of polyps is already quite great education, visible to our eye, forming a kind of "bush" growing on the bottom soil. An exception is, perhaps, only a representative of madrepore corals, their body reaches a diameter of up to half a meter.
The skeleton of corals is internal (formed by a special protein) and external (from above it is enveloped by calcium carbonate secreted from the body of the polyp).
If we talk about a colony of coral polyps, then there is a so-called hydroskeleton - this is the water contained in the body cavity of all "inhabitants of the colony". By the joint efforts of the cilia of all members of the colony, water constantly circulates through the "common body", thus supporting not only vital activity, but also the shape of the coral polyps.
Most often, corals inhabit warm areas of ocean waters, but there are also certain types, for which the cold is not terrible. Such cold-resistant polyps include gersemia. For normal life, coral polyps only need salty water, if even the slightest desalination occurs in the habitat, this is already destructive for the polyp.
Most of all, these animals love to live in clear and clean water. The depth of habitation is generally shallow. Corals prefer good illumination, which is in short supply at great depths. But some species go to great depths (for example, bathypates lives at a level of 8000 meters from the surface of the water!).
Coral polyps grow very slowly, with an average rate of 1 to 3 centimeters per year. Hundreds and even thousands of years pass before reefs and even entire coral islands, known as atolls, form on the seabed. By the way, quite recently, scientists were 4000 years old! This is a real long-liver of our planet, researchers have never met another similar organism.
Coral polyps use two methods to reproduce: vegetative and sexual. In the first case, the “daughter” sprouts from the parent, which eventually turns into an independent organism. Sexual reproduction occurs in a certain season and only ... on a full moon. And in this there is no mysticism, but only physics pure water, after all, during the full moon, the strongest tides occur in the oceans, which means that the chances of the spread of germ cells are much greater.
Corals are valuable organisms, and not only because they are used to make expensive jewelry and decorative items. Coral colonies form entire ecosystems in which many marine animals live and reproduce.
The most famous "coral giant" in the world is the formation near the coast of Australia, called the Great Barrier Reef, its length is 2500 kilometers!
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MOU Gymnasium 16, Vladikavkaz Direction of work: science of nature (biology). Name research work"Coral reefs". Author of the work: Kudryashov Andrey, Place of execution: MOU Gymnasium 16, Vladikavkaz, 2 "A" class. supervisor: Kudryashova Tatyana Alexandrovna teacher primary grades of the highest category, the head of the school and city MO of primary school teachers, a member of the methodological council of the educational and methodological office primary education SORIPKRO v.
Introduction. I have a collection of various souvenirs at home. One of them is the memento that I hold in my hand in the photograph. It turned out to be a little unusual for me because it was made of coral. And I was interested in the question, what are corals. Now I am in 2nd grade and can already read well, I am fond of interesting scientific and educational literature. And I set out to learn more about what corals are and everything connected with them.
For this, I set myself the following tasks: 1. To study more deeply the scientific and educational literature on this issue; 2. Make conclusions for yourself. Research methods: collection of information, observation, conclusions. The hypothesis of my research was the following: if I can find and solve a number of tasks assigned to me, then I will be able to deliver my presentation to different audiences.
I provide information on the following plan: 1. What are corals? 2. Reefs in the oceans. 3. Atolls. 4. Life on the atoll. 5. Great Barrier Reef. 6. Kingdom of corals. 7. Coral is a brain. 8. Bubble corals. 9. Disguise. 10. Inhabitants of the reefs. 11. The hunters. 12.Cleaners. 13. Man and reefs. 14. Glossary.
What are corals? Corals, or coral polyps (they are also called that way) are unusual marine animals. Many of these soft-bodied creatures grow hard outer skeletons to defend themselves. They live in colonies. New polyps settle on top of dying old ones, forming a coral reef. Coral reefs provide shelter and food for many marine animals - sponges, sea urchins, starfish and fish.
Attola Atoll is a coral island in the form of a ring that bends around the lagoon. Coral islands usually formed around underwater volcanoes. If the atoll is covered with earth, palms and other plants grow on it. The extinct volcano slowly subsides and gradually turns into small island surrounded by a coral reef. Over time, this islet also disappears under water and a lagoon takes its place.
Life on the atoll. Corals around the edges extinct volcano continue to grow even after the volcano plunges into the sea. Polyps that reach the water border die in the air. A calcareous surface is formed from their skeletons. Gradually, coral sand and soil appear on it. Birds carry plant seeds to the atoll, which germinate in the sand. After dying, the plants rot, and a thin layer of soil forms on the island. The atoll is home to trees, shrubs and other vegetation with short, branched roots.
Great Barrier Reef. Along east coast Australia has a huge coral reef. Its length is 2000 km, and its width in some places is 150 m. It is called the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef has been forming for millions of years. It consists of 3,000 individual coral reefs, which are formed by 350 species of polyps.
Kingdom of corals. Caralls are the most different colors, even black. The color of some of them depends on the tiny algae that live inside the polyps. Coral colonies sometimes resemble beautiful gardens. The shape of the corals is bizarre and varied. They look like a bird's feather, then like a mushroom, then like a fan.
Bubble corals. A colony of bubble corals, or pleogirs, resembles a bunch of grapes; its bubbles are filled with water. However, "grapes" are not as harmless as they seem at first glance. These polyps are armed with stinging tentacles. Bubble corals form large colonies. They are often found in warm waters between Africa and Australia.
Reef dwellers. Many fish living in the coral "jungle" are distinguished by their bright colors and amazing patterns. The names of the fish are also bizarre in the reefs there are butterfly fish, parrot fish, cardinal fish and even angel fish. The coloration of coral reef groupers is very diverse. Many of them are "decorated" with bright spots or dots. These fish change color depending on the time of day or the color of the corals.
Conclusion. Having studied the literature, I learned a lot of interesting and useful things for myself and I can draw the following conclusions: 1. Corals are really unusual marine animals. 2. They live in colonies and not only in warm waters, but also in cold ones. 3. What are coral reefs, atolls. 4. That life on the atoll also exists. 5. Indeed, there are quite a few varieties of corals, just like the fish themselves .. With this work I plan to speak to various audiences.
For more than 250 million years, coral reefs have been successful and viable organisms - the coral reefs themselves are proof of this - and the size is impressive. Now disturbances in the biological processes of these creatures lead to a gradual depletion and destruction of coral ecosystems around the world.
Coral reefs are the world's largest structures created by naturally living beings.
In addition to industrial pollution, reefs are hampered by rising ocean temperatures, overfishing, increased sediment and acid concentrations, as well as oxygen deficiency and the emergence of new disease vectors. 
Separately from each other, these problems would not be so critical - but the interaction of many negative factors at once leads to disastrous results. Today it is known that 20% of the world's coral reefs are already extinct, and that if the situation does not change, then in the near future the Earth will lose another 24%.
Like rainforests, reefs are home to a multitude of species, and the destruction (extinction) of these ecosystems leads to horrific declines in populations of a wide variety of living things. While it is even difficult to imagine. Many people, however, still don't realize that corals are very important for maintaining balance in marine life.
The extinction of coral reefs around the world is happening (including) due to the fact that poisonous algae are multiplying more and more due to overfishing of the fish that feed on them, according to an article by researchers published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). 
Researchers say that different algae have different toxicity to corals, and the most evil was Chlorodesmis fastigiata, or "turtle grass." It is unlikely that algae created their own chemical weapon against corals: they needed poisonous terpenes to protect themselves from fish. Indeed, most fish species ignore these algae, with the exception of chimeras.
Where they are given full will, algae occupy 60% of the bottom surface and, if they are not stopped in any way, they may well completely displace corals altogether. So to the common problems of coral reefs - warming and water pollution and intensive fishing, there is also a war against algae-aggressors.
Coral reefs are playing important role in maintaining ecological and climatic balance throughout the planet. They concentrate carbonates in themselves, and hence carbon. Tons of coral reefs hold many tons of carbon. And the temperature regime on the planet depends on the ratio of atmospheric carbon dioxide and carbon dissolved in the World Ocean. That's why mass death corals will undoubtedly bring about an increase in the concentration of carbon in the water, and, accordingly, climatic changes.
Coral reefs attract tourists and support small nations' economies, provide natural defenses against hurricanes and tsunamis, and support the fishing industry: for all key commercial fish species, coral colonies serve as habitats and food sources. The economies of many small islands are held exclusively on corals.
Coral reef death, biodiversity loss due to invasion invasive species, the spread of "dead zones" of the seas and oceans, the bloom of toxic algae, the depletion of fish stocks - all this is now on the rise. The planet has a lot of problems. Sea life is dying faster than the most pessimistic forecast predicted just a couple of years ago. This process will affect the life of all the inhabitants of the planet.
“Even though corals rely heavily on algae for food, they may not even be aware of the presence of algae,” says zoology professor Virginia Weis. - We believe that this is what happens when the water gets too hot or something else interferes with the coral - communication from algae to coral is disrupted, and the message that everything is fine is no longer transmitted, and algae come out of their shelters and stumble on the immune response from corals ”.
“Between 40% and 70% of the algae we studied kill corals. We don't know exactly how significant this problem is compared to other causes of coral extinction worldwide, but it gets worse over time. For reefs already affected by overfishing or other activity, the presence of algae may mean impossibility of natural recovery at all"- said Professor Mark Hay (Mark Hay), lead author of the study, quoted by the press office of the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States.
“We have long since opened general principles the vital functions of corals, and the problems they face due to climate change- says Professor Weiss. - Until recently, little was known about their biological structure on a fundamental scientific level as well as the structure of their genome and internal communication. Only if we truly understand how their physiology works will it become clear to us if they can adapt to climate change and if there is something we could help them. "
"Reducing the amount of fish that feed on algae has a cascade of negative effects. The more fish you catch, the more algae grows in the coral reefs, the more damage the corals get, and the less they get over time. The fewer corals, the less attractive the reef becomes for fish is a spiraling death spiral that is difficult to reverse, "said Professor Mark Hay, USA.
Coral rescue
There is a possibility that diving in Thailand may be banned in order to restore dying corals. Specialists from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources of Thailand have submitted a petition to the government of the country to close a number of popular sites for diving. national parks Surin and Similan, which are located near the resort island of Phuket.
Malaysia - the best place for diving in the world. But here, too, recently about 90% of local coral reefs have been damaged, which led to coral bleaching, and, accordingly, to harsh government measures. Already closed about a dozen diving clubs across the country.
Although coral bleaching is mainly due to increased temperatures, but also human factor, namely, touching corals is also dangerous in the bleaching process.
Caribbean coral extinction
A poorly understood disease has mowed down coral reefs in the Caribbean, weakened by too much warmer water in recent years. According to scientists, the pandemic of the "white plague" will lead to an almost complete change in the ecosystem of the world's oceans.
Students of the underwater world Caribbean experts are faced with the fact of unprecedented death of corals. In just three to four months, about a third of the coral colonies located in official control sites near Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands died.
Corals grow very slowly, so any large-scale losses for them are irreplaceable.
A new study has shown that shrinking coral reefs in the Caribbean are directly linked to an increase in the human population, Science Daily reports. It has been found that the higher the density of the population living near the reefs, the higher the coral mortality. Neighborhood with humans also negatively affects the number of fish.
Calcite or Aragonite?
Scientists have shown that growing corals build their skeleton depending on the composition of the surrounding water.
Aragonite.
Corals can "switch" composition from calcite to aragonite. This ability manifested itself under conditions when the composition of magnesium in the water decreased (which should be part of the first mineral) and the level of calcium (which is part of the second) increased.
It turned out that corals that grew in water corresponding to older stages geological history, consisted mainly of calcite, and at present - of aragonite.
It was also found that corals in "ancient" water developed much slower than those in "modern" water, writes the All-Russian Ecological Portal.
If you happen to dive to the depths of the sea, you probably saw bright corals of bizarre shapes there. They look like living beautiful bushes with numerous branches that you cannot find in an ordinary garden.
Are corals an animal or a plant? This thought comes first when faced with this sea miracle... Scientists could not understand for a long time what type of organisms corals belong to. It was only in 1982 that a French researcher proved that these are not marine plants.
Coral base
They are made up of very small organisms called polyps. This is a class of coelenterate invertebrates that can live both in colonies and alone. Today there are about 6,000 species of them.
These multicellular organisms have been around since the time of the ancient mammoths. They have only one cavity - the intestines, with the help of which food is digested. Hence their name - coelenterates. Therefore, there is no debate about whether corals are an animal or a plant. Polyps may have different sizes- from a millimeter to several centimeters.
There are also huge ones - half a meter in diameter. These include representatives of the madrepor species. One large organism emerges from numerous polyps, which resembles a huge bush that attracts the eyes of divers.
Polyp structure and nutrition
It is rather primitive and resembles a cylinder with tentacles. Some polyps have a skeleton that is made of calcium. Not all polyps can move along the seabed. Only their tentacles are bent, helping to get food. How does this happen? Coral tentacles pull small fish and shrimps into their nets.
In the intestinal cavity, the polyp has cilia that create water stream... Thanks to him, oxygen and food enter the body. We hope we have answered the question of whether corals are an animal or a plant.
Dimensions and shape
The rich variety of the wonderful living organism knows no bounds. The smallest coral reefs can be several centimeters in length, the largest are over 5 meters high! Their shape can be very diverse: in the form of a twig, a curved hook, a barrel, a feather, or even in the form of a household item.
There are also more complex corals that resemble a fan, bird, animal. Some colonies grow upward, others wider. They often look like spread out brightly colored carpets. What are corals? Their colors are very different - these are shades of red, black, pink, green. Corals of blue and purple colors are quite rare.
The characteristics of coral polyps are such that they are found only in tropical and subtropical waters. Some species live in the polar seas in the north. For example, gersemia. Another remarkable thing is that all corals live mainly in salty clear waters.
Many coral species prefer to live in shallow waters that are well-illuminated by daylight. This is due to the fact that this living organism lives in collaboration with algae, which need light for photosynthesis. What types of corals are there? The most famous are porous, mushroom, black. There are about 400 species of coral in the Great Barrier Reef alone!
Deep polyps
These include curved corals called bathypates. They can be found at depths of over 8000 meters! Colonies appear only at the bottom of a solid. Also excellent habitats for them are sunken ships, aircraft, underwater structures.
Deep sea corals tend to be sedentary. Some of them can move along the seabed, but very slowly. Despite the fact that the structure of corals is primitive, they have complex biological rhythms.
Most often, this unusual organism behaves actively at night. Corals throw out their tentacles like nets and wait for food. With the onset of dawn, polyps shrink and prefer to be at rest.
Coral breeding
Scientists believe that this marine organism can reproduce both vegetatively and sexually. Amazing ability, isn't it? Vegetative consists in fragmentation and then separation of the "child" from the parent polyp.
Usually, a coral forms a small "plate" on its stem, which is then detached and rooted at the bottom of the sea soil. The sexual mode assumes that the corals must be male and female. This is not the case with all polyps. Reproduction in this case occurs as follows: during fertilization, sperm penetrate the gastric cavity. Then they go outside and find themselves in the area of the mouth of the female polyp.
Cell division takes place traditionally. As a result embryonic development small larvae form, which then swim freely in the water. Such information should dispel doubts among those people who still have not found a definite answer to the question of whether corals are an animal or a plant.
A little about the benefits
Corals delight the eye with their unusual appearance, but this is not their only advantage. They are actually builders marine ecosystem... And they organize it without much fuss. Forming colonies, they provide a roof over their heads to various marine inhabitants, such as: eels, rays, starfish and various fish.
Jewelers claim that marine polyps- an excellent material for the manufacture of various products. It is known that in ancient times coral necklaces were hung around the necks of small children for better growth of teeth. It was also believed that seafood helped in difficult situations. Therefore, they were used as an amulet that could protect from the evil eye and give strength in difficult situations. Traditional healers believe that corals regulate metabolism, have a beneficial effect on the cardiovascular system, and improve memory.
In conclusion, I would like to note that corals belong to the animal world and you can tell a lot of interesting things about them.
N. KELLER, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Senior Researcher at the Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The device for underwater research "Mir-1".
Ocean ship "Vityaz".
Research vessel "Akademik Mstislav Keldysh".
The Sigsby trawl is being prepared for descent.
On the stones brought by a trawl from the Ormond Seamount (at the exit from Strait of Gibraltar), very interesting animals live. Biologists at work.
The Mir-2 underwater vehicle took this picture at a depth of 800 meters.
This is what the ocean floor looks like at a depth of 1500 meters. The picture was taken by the Pysis underwater vehicle.
Sea urchin. It lives at a depth of about 3000 meters.
In 1982, I boarded an ocean-going ship. It was Vityaz-2, a newly built ship of the new generation, on which everything was equipped for scientific research. The bottom dwellers from the benthos laboratory of the Institute of Oceanology of the USSR Academy of Sciences had to collect bottom animals living on the Mid-Atlantic underwater ridge. We set sail from Novorossiysk, the home port of Vityaz.
The research area of the voyage was biological, but geologists also came with us. Two German geologists included in the expedition attracted general attention. One of them, Gunther Bublitz, was Deputy Director of the Institute of Maritime Science in Rostock. Another, Peter, worked at the Geological Institute in Freiburg. The voyage was also attended by two physicists from the Physics Institute of the Academy of Sciences.
The head of our detachment was a huge, unusually colorful and artistic Lev Moskalev. He devotedly loved biology, meticulously systematizing its most diverse aspects, was a born taxonomist both in science and in life. The team of the soul doted on him, rolling with laughter from his jokes and paying tribute to his sea experience.
We were all candidates of science, all, except me, have already been on flights more than once. Having settled in the cabins, we went to inspect the ship. Everything inside was comfortable for work. Spacious, bright laboratory rooms with huge windows, new binocular loupes, sieves and a "Fedikov barrel" for washing samples, sample jars - everything was in place. On the decks were winches with oiled cables wound on huge drums. There were several bottom grabs, a sled trawl was standing. On the tank (on the bow of the ship) there was a small winch for working with geological pipes. We were very interested in the underwater manned vehicle "Pisces", which stood in a special room.
It turned out that after seasickness, from which I began to suffer in the very first hours of the voyage, the most unpleasant thing in the sea voyage was weakness. It's hard to spend three months barely moving. You begin to feel in your own skin what a prisoner should feel, sitting for months in a cramped cell.
Working in the ocean did not disappoint my expectations. Nowhere else has I been so excitingly interested. Trawling was especially difficult and exciting, like an adventure. We prepared for this event in advance. During the "idle" to the place of work, we learned the art of knitting nautical knots, sewed and repaired the trawl net. It was not so easy: several huge nets with meshes of different diameters, cleverly inserted into one another, occupied the entire width of the deck. The men checked the reliability of the cables, weaved dubious, weakened sections tightly.
But then the ship arrives at the planned landfill. The long-awaited working moment begins. The stern of our ship ends in a slip - a wide slope into the sea, like on large fishing boats. There is a large trawl winch nearby. Remove the fence over the slip. The Sigsby special benthic trawl is being launched. Trawling is an art, especially in seamounts ah, where sharp rocks can break the nets. Trawlers constantly run to the echo sounder, monitor the changes in the bottom topography. The captain of the ship must also have a lot of experience and skill, constantly correcting the course of the ship, steering so that the trawl can land on soft ground. Three kilometers of cable have been etched away. You need a lot of composure and attention of a trawler who is able to catch the moment the trawl touches the bottom at a three-kilometer depth. Otherwise, the trawl may come empty, and hours of precious time will be wasted. If too much of the cable is corroded, it can become tangled or caught on rocks. It's time to lift the trawl up. All but the trawler were ordered to leave the deck and hide. If a heavy trawl breaks, which has happened more than once, the steel cable, suddenly freed from the colossal load, can injure a person. Finally the trawl is lifted. Its contents are dumped onto the deck. Only we, biologists, are allowed to approach it, otherwise the sailors and even the employees can take away the beautiful fauna that got into the trawl for souvenirs. On the deck there are whole heaps of soil, shell rock, stones and pebbles: the living inhabitants of the depths are still swarming, so unceremoniously raised to the surface. Large crawling sea urchins of different types - black, with long needles and smaller, colored, with beautiful shell plates. Ophiuras with thin wriggling serpentine rays lurked in caverns on the stones. The starfish move their "legs". Various bivalve molluscs... Gastropods and nudibranchs move slowly in the sun. Worms of various types try to hide in the cracks. And - about joy! A mass of small white calcareous horns with a polyp inside. This is the subject of my research, solitary deep sea corals... Apparently, the trawl captured a whole "meadow" of these animals sitting on the slope of the seamount, which in a state of "hunting", with tentacles released from the cups, look like fancy flowers.
Ichthyologists are launching their own "fishing" trawl. For fishing deep sea fish a specialist - tram master was invited to the expedition.
Geologists lower geological pipes and dredgers. The surface of the sediment they mined is also given to us, biologists, for inspection: what if some animals were caught there too? So we have a lot of work, we sit, dismantle the fauna, without unbending. And this is wonderful, since the most murderous thing on the ship is the languid days of idleness.
So, lowering now trawls, now scoops, we worked out a huge seamount Great Meteor on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, from its foot, located at a depth of three kilometers, to the underwater summit. We managed to find out comparative features fauna living in different seamounts and at different depths in the central part of the ocean. With the help of the underwater manned vehicle "Pysis", descending to a depth of two kilometers, our colleagues could personally observe the lifestyle and behavior of many bottom animals, filming all this on photographic film, then we scanned it, finding objects of interest to everyone. Everyone was passionate and worked tirelessly.
Anemones, like corals, are coelenterates. They are mainly distinguished by the absence of a skeleton. When sea anemones sit motionless on rocks in a "hunting" position, spreading their numerous tentacles around their mouths, they are very similar to underwater flowers, which some scientists of the early 18th century believed them to be. At low tide, the tentacles shrink, and the anemones turn into small slimy lumps, into almost indistinguishable growths on the rocks. But all this is only an appearance. Anemones have the ability to sense the approach of an enemy at a great distance for them, for example, some species of nudibranchs eating them. Then they assume vicious defensive postures, menacingly raising their wriggling, thinning tentacles vertically upward. They hurl painfully and predatory swallow any prey that turns up to them. They can come off the substrate, and then the wave will carry them to a safe distance. Or they can move slowly on solid ground. They fight with tentacles and aggressively defend their place against other species of anemones. These animals are able to regenerate, restoring their entire body, emerging like a Phoenix from the ashes, if only 1/6 of it is left intact. All this turned out to be unexpected and unusually fascinating for me, a former paleontologist. Studying the behavior and lifestyle of anemones helped me to vividly imagine the behavior and life of deep-sea solitary corals, which we cannot directly observe in laboratory conditions.
The captain of the new Vityaz was Nikolai Apekhtin, one of the most educated and handsome captains who sailed on our research vessels. Nikolay owned two European languages, was well-read and curious; behaved with great dignity, caring for people, and most importantly, he was distinguished by the highest professionalism, and it was a pleasure to work with him.
My second flight took place only three years later. I went under the command of the hydrologist Vitaly Ivanovich Voitov on the same Vityaz-2 and with the same captain Kolya Apekhtin, but already headed my own small group.
I was charged with taking phytoplankton samples at each station and then filtering it. In addition, I obtained a promise that at the end of the voyage, specially for me off the coast of Africa, several stops will be made to take samples from the bottom.
Swimming with Vitaly Ivanovich Voitov was remembered as one of the most pleasant and calm. Voitov, a large, benevolent and unhurried person, was not nervous during the expedition and did not rush anyone. However, the work under his command went quickly, as usual.
About a month after leaving Novorossiysk, we crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The time zones changed so quickly that we barely had time to rearrange our clocks. The ocean was unusually quiet, and we peacefully and calmly arrived in the area of work. It was located almost within the infamous Bermuda Triangle, near its corner where the Sargasso Sea is located. ... Bermuda Triangle- really a very special place. Storms and hurricanes originate here. Therefore, anyone, especially a person who is sensitive to atmospheric fluctuations, does not leave an alarming oppressive feeling, similar to the one that you experience before a thunderstorm. But, fortunately, in this unpleasant area the sea was absolutely calm, although the sight of a red-hot dark Sun shining through a gray transparent haze seemed ominous.
At one of the scientific colloquia, hydrophysicists reported the existence of rings in the Sargasso Sea - small circular eddies resulting from the rise of fountains of cold bottom waters upward, carrying nitrates, phosphates and all other useful for the life of phytoplankton and algae to the upper layers of water masses organic matter... We decided to check whether the existence of invertebrates in the rings affects their number and size. My colleague, Natasha Luchina, who studied algae, caught different types of sargassos with a herbarium net. And I, carefully examining the surfaces of their stems, found on them a mass of polychaete worms sitting in transparent mucous covers-houses, tiny gastropods, bivalves and nimble nudibranchs with their multi-colored papillae. Invertebrate "animals", like little Kon-Tiki, swam in their sar gass boats, and the currents carried them across the entire ocean. It turned out that German scientists were still in late XIX for centuries, they experimented, throwing sealed bottles into the Sargasso Sea, and clearly showed how the currents untwisted there, carrying bottles unexpectedly far - to the shores of Europe and South America... Such experiences awaken the imagination. I began to weigh the animals collected inside and outside the rings, compare the number, size and composition, draw graphs. The results are curious. Indeed, within the rings, life flourished. There were more animals, they were larger and more varied. The conclusion turned out to be my little discovery.
The voyage was coming to an end. We passed the Canary Islands and approached the shores of Africa. Finally, the week allotted to me for the bottom grab work in the Canary upwelling area has come.
What is upwelling? Coriolis forces emerge as the effect of the Earth's rotation. Under their influence on the ocean surface in tropical zone multidirectional gyres of surface water masses are formed. At the same time, the rise of deep waters into the upper layers of the hydrosphere is observed near the eastern shores of all oceans. These are upwellings. With them ocean depths carried out, as in the rings, only on a much larger scale, nutrients, on the basis of which phytoplankton develops rapidly, serving in turn as food for zooplankton, and the latter abundantly nourishes the inhabitants of the bottom. At the same time, there can be so much food that it is impossible to eat all of it, and as a result, local deaths are obtained, zones of decay of bottom fauna, migrating depending on the strengthening or weakening of upwelling. Corals do not feed on phytoplankton. They cannot stand its abundance, as it prevents them from breathing. These animals absorb oxygen throughout the entire surface of the body, and their cilia do not have time to clean the upper perioral area with tentacles from a large amount of foreign suspension in the water. In those areas of the ocean where powerful upwellings are active - Peruvian, Benguela - corals have not been found at all.
They helped me set up a scoop. There was also a man from the team who knew how to deftly handle this fishing gear. We decided to work at night. A huge tropical moon was shining. Excited, I worked like an automaton, barely managing to take samples and sort the constantly arriving soil - we worked at shallow depths.
I went on the next flight in 1987 on the same Vityaz-2. The tasks of the flight this time were technical. It was for the first time to test the famous manned underwater vehicles "Mir", made in Finland according to projects developed at our institute, and capable of operating at depths of up to six kilometers. The expedition also needed a biologist to determine the fauna captured by scoops and dredges during geological work, as well as manipulators and nets with which the Mira were equipped. The head of the technical sector of our institute, Vyacheslav Yastrebov, was appointed the head of the flight.
On board the ship, I learned that the magnetometry detachment is headed by the poet Alexander Gorodnitsky, whose songs we sang with gusto once around the fire in the Bet-Pak-Dala desert. We were accompanied by geologists who studied sediments in the ocean - V. Shimkus and the talented Ivor Oskarovich Murdmaa.
This time we left Kaliningrad in "Vityaz". Peace and quiet stood in the straits along which our "Vityaz" went to the ocean. We walked along the very coast, past Kiel and smaller German towns and villages, admiring the cleanliness and neatness of houses, embankments, past gardens with touching gnomes, ducks and bunnies standing in them. But now the channels have been passed. Ahead is the North Sea, on which such a storm was raging that the pilot refused to lead us further. However, in Lisbon, in a hotel, in rooms paid for by the institute, two Englishwomen and a German scientist, invited to our flight, are waiting. And Captain Apekhtin, who knows every pitfall even without a pilot here, decides to navigate the ship on the diverging sea himself. Black clouds with torn light edges rush across the sky. Dark, eerie and gloomy all around. The wind whistles and screeches over our ship.
But everything in the world comes to an end. In the "narrow" straits between England and the French coast, contrary to the fears of the captain, it becomes much quieter. The weather in the formidable Bay of Biscay turned out to be even calmer, almost calm. As on a lake, we reached Lisbon along it, and after a four-day stay, we began work on the seamounts of the Tyrrhenian Sea, near Corsica.
Geologists worked with scoops for three underwater uplifts: the Baroni ridge, Marsili and Manyagi mountains, from the foot to the peaks. All three mountains are of volcanic origin, have steep rocky slopes and sharp peaks. It was necessary to contrive and get the scoop exactly into the small recesses in which the sediment accumulated. Here a real wizard, a master high class Professor M.V. Emelyanov from the Kaliningrad branch of our institute showed himself. He guided the scoops so deftly that almost all of them came full. Such work with scoops, from my point of view, far exceeds the capabilities of trawls for catching bottom fauna. Of course, it requires a lot of skill and patience. First, the scoops provide an accurate depth reference. Secondly, we must admit that the trawl mercilessly violates the environment, pulling out all living things from the bottom at a great distance, and the scoop takes a sample from a certain area aimingly. However, scoops cannot catch large animals, and the picture of the bottom population is not entirely complete.
As a result of the selection of fauna from the scoops, I got a picture of the distribution of benthic animals and, of course, solitary corals on the seamounts. Comparison of the obtained material with the fauna that we caught earlier on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, in the center of the ocean, where the conditions of its habitat are very different from life in coastal zone... Thus, the voyage turned out to be scientifically very interesting, and there were so many materials, as if a whole biological detachment was working.
My fourth and last expedition took place next year, in 1988, on the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh vessel, the largest and most comfortable of the entire research fleet.
The flight leader was Yastrebov. Gorodnitsky was walking with us again.
This time we worked out the already familiar seamounts of the Tyrrhenian Sea, as well as the Ormond and Gettysburg mountains in Atlantic Ocean, at the exit from the Strait of Gibraltar. But all the attention was paid to work with the help of the Mir submersibles, the descent of which gathered the entire population of the ship on the deck and became a truly exciting spectacle. Three people descended into the depths of the ocean: the commander of an underwater manned vehicle, a pilot and an observer from "science" with a movie camera. The room inside is very cramped, people were placed almost close to each other. The entrance was battened down. Then, with the help of a large trawl winch, a spherical apparatus was carefully lowered into the water, which immediately began to swing even with a small wave. Immediately from the side of the ship an inflatable motor boat approached him. From it, having contrived, with a long jump, like a gymnast, a man in a diving suit jumped to the upper platform of the swinging ball in order to unhook the Mir from the winch cable. These were dangerous manipulations. But on our voyage everything went well.
Mir could spend up to 25 hours under water. The entire composition of the ship, both the crew and the "science", was looking forward to his return, constantly peering into the distance, into the water surface. Finally, a squeak was heard - the call signs of the submarine, and it floated to the surface of the sea, sometimes very far from the ship, distinguishable at night by the glowing red light, its identification mark. The ship set off on its way in order to as soon as possible raise people on the deck, who were strongly rocked and spun when the ball dangled on the surface. And now the door of the apparatus is being torn apart, and tired "submariners" crawl out onto the deck, staggering. And we get the long-awaited materials - samples of rocks taken by the manipulator, animals sitting on them, sediment from the net and animals from the sediment.
Thanks to Miram, our geologists for the first time managed to take in the Tyrrhenian Sea from the slopes of seamounts, layer by layer, from the bottom up along the section, samples of bedrocks with colonies of modern and fossil corals sitting on them. The World's manipulators took out samples and lowered them into a special grid in the way that a geologist-stratigrapher usually does, working on the surface of the earth, and how on deep sea no one has succeeded yet. The subsequent determination of the absolute age and species of these corals made it possible, already in Moscow, to draw interesting conclusions about the rate of rise of the Gibraltar threshold during geological time, about ecological situation, which reigned in the Mediterranean in the distant past.
We also learned a lot about the lifestyle of benthic invertebrates, about their location in relation to deep streams, placement on various soils and on different forms relief. The study of the seabed with the help of the "Worlds" soon marked the beginning of a completely new science- underwater landscape science. Several years later, with the help of "Mirov" began the search and study of underwater hydrothermal vents and their specific population. Thus, working with Mirami opened up completely new perspectives and horizons in science. And I am glad that I witnessed the very first, most exciting steps in this direction.
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