The Washington Post highlights Dr. Steve Ross' (University of North Carolina at Wilmington) and Dr. Sandra Brooke's (FSUCML) research off the mid-Atlantic coast. A new chemosythetic community was found in which many different species of corals and other creatures can be found. Dr. Brooke says, "We've had very little information about the communities in the canyons", but now with funding from NOAA and the use of submersibles they are slowly starting to uncover some of the mysteries and discover communities they never knew existed in these areas.

Dr. Sandra Brooke is setting sail with NOAA to further explore the submarine canyons between Charleston, SC and Norfolk, VA. In 2010, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and NOAA funded a four-year project to conduct multidisciplinary research that will be used to manage canyon ecosystems.

Our newest faculty member, Dr. Sandra Brooke, is in Norway right now observing the impact of drilling discharges on larvae of the coral Lophelia pertusa. This is a small component of a large project funded by The Research Council of Norway to investigate the effect of drilling muds used for oil and gas extraction on Norwegian cold-water corals, specifically Lophelia pertusa. The project is a collaborative effort led by Dr. Thierry Baussant from the International Research Institute of Stavanger (IRIS) and includes several scientists from the US, Norway and the Netherlands.

Join us in welcoming our newest faculty member, Dr. Sandra Brooke. As a coral ecologist, she has worked around the world, from England to the Cayman Islands to Virginia and back to the UK, identifying sensitive coral reefs and informing policy decisions about management and protection of these coral reef ecosystems. She also works to ensure adequate enforcement of regulations so that sensitive ecosystems are truly protected.