Anne Simpson lives on Break Neck Ridge Road, West Side Road with her husband Karl. She is a graduate student at the University of Maine and works out of U of Maine marine research lab called the Darling Marine Center.It's located over in Walpole (near S. Bristol). I had an interesting conversation with her about her work. The following is what she explained to me:

"For most people, the word "coral" may bring to mind images of turquoise blue, tropical waters and splendidly beautiful coral reefs. Like plants, corals, which build tropical reefs, rely on sunlight for their survival because tiny blue green algae (called zooxanthellae), which live in coral tissues, use energy from the sun to make food, which they share with their host coral. Corals themselves are not plants, but animals and they also feed on small prey items they capture in their tentacles.

"Many species of coral are only found in shallow tropical waters, however numerous other coral species have adapted to living outside of the tropics, in colder waters, below the depth that most sunlight penetrates. Some corals can even live in the deep ocean, miles below the sea surface. Many of the corals found in cold and deep waters are "sea fan" type corals. This type of coral does not build reefs, however, tropical "sea fan" corals are also found growing alongside reef building corals in the tropics.

"There are a few cold-water coral species that do build large reefs. In the northeastern Atlantic a coral called Lophelia pertusa builds large reef complexes off the coasts of Scandinavia and the British Isles. These reefs are akin to tropical reefs but they grow in cold and dark waters often well below the depth of 600 feet. Many fish and small invertebrates make their homes in these reef habitats."

In the Gulf of Maine. Dr. Les Watling, a scientist at the University of Maine, and his graduate student, Anne, are studying corals in the Gulf of Maine and other deep-water corals found on the New England Seamounts (a chain of underwater mountains found far off the coast of New England and the mid-Atlantic.

To collect corals for their research, Dr. Watling and Anne have joined teams of other scientists on oceanographic research cruises. On these cruises, the team of scientists has used deep diving submarines, like Woods Hole Oceanographic's ALVIN, and remotely operated vehicles (ROV's). Scientists direct submarine and ROV pilots to collect video and coral samples for their research needs. In 2003, Dr. Watling and Anne were the first scientists to dive on Kelvin Seamount (one mountain in the New England Seamount Chain). They dove to a depth of 2000 meters (or about 6000 feet) in the ALVIN submersible. While in the sub, they observed some spectacular underwater landscapes with large and colorful "sea fan" corals and returned to the surface with numerous coral specimens. Last summer, they returned to the New England Seamounts and collected additional specimens using an ROV.

This summer, Dr. Watling, Anne and a team of other scientists plan to embark from the Azores on a trans-Atlantic research cruise and revisit the New England Seamounts in the fall with the ALVIN.