Back in 1989 we (Ron Kaufmann, Michel Boudrias, and I - all at Scripps at
the time) were towing a camera sled and trailing otter trawl at about
2000 m in the San Clemente Basin, off the Southern California, USA,
coast. When we recovered the trawl, we discovered our samples (lots of
ophiuroids, polychaetes, crustaceans) were covered in white paint (as was
much of the deck of the ship and passageways, later!). Upon returning to
the lab and developing the film from the camera sled, we saw the source
of the paint was a 5 gallon drum of marine paint 1/4 buried in the
sediments. In our photos it lay directly in the path of the trawl. I
don't remember hauling up the drum (we may have), but I definitely
remember the paint!
I've seen photos from other trawls done in the Santa Catalina Basin that
show chairs and other debris at greater than 1000 m. Bob Hessler has at
least one shoe that was hauled up in a trawl from that depth.
Scott France scf at christa.unh.edu
Department of Zoology Phone: (603) 862-2104
University of New Hampshire FAX: (603) 862-3784
Biological Sciences Center
46 College Road
Durham, NH 03824-2617
