Highlights: 00:19:26 Ling 00:29:08 Shark 00:49:06 Sea pen 00:59:48 Bolocera anemones? 01:33:10 Sea pens & brittlestars

The feature here is a steep vertical incline of soft sediment beginning at 972 m. The initial dense beds of xenophyophores give way to sporadic individuals. The faunal assemblage is characterised by sea pens, with Pennatula sp. occurring in very dense patches on occasion and are densest at ~ 980 m. Other species of sea pen are also observed within these beds. Fish species included the northern cut-throat, grenadiers, chimerids, ling and sharks. Trawl marks and fishing debris (lines/rope) are evident throughout the site.

START VIDEO [00:00:00]/ 22:23 [1] The dive starts on dense xenophyophore aggregations (Syringammina fragilissima) on a mud bottom, with many associated epifaunal species. ROV moves left a couple of times before heading forwards. [00:12:00] -[00:14:00] Brief stop (perhaps for ship movement). [00:14:00] ROV moves diagonally right. [00:20:00] ROV moving slowly forwards. [00:23:00] ROV moving diagonally right. [00:24:00] The seabed slopes down to the right with the ROV moving along and up slope. [00:25:00] -[00:34:00] sparse pebbles and cobbles are encountered, often hosting barnacles, but these are too rare to be defined as a mosaicked biotope. [00:29:00] ROV encounters a leafscale gulper shark (Centrophorus squamatus). [00:35:00] The first of several mound features, assumed to be indicative of rock features with a heavy mud veneer. [00:47:00]-[00:54:00] sampling Halipteris sp . sea pen. [00:56:00]- END rare cobbles are encountered. [00:57:00] the landscape slopes down to the left in front of the ROV. [01:01:00] landscape slopes to right. [01:04:00] more mounds indicating rock features beneath the sediment. [01:06:00] [2] juvenile Pennatula aculeata seapens become the dominant fauna, often dense though this wavers. The similar sizing suggests that a mass colonisation event may have occurred with one cohort of larval seapens settling. [01:07:35] the edge of a buried carbonate ledge is visible (sufficiently buried to resemble a rope lying on the seafloor). [01:12:00] more mound features [01:13:00] [3] the fauna becomes sparse/ with no clear dominant species, the mud substrate continues. [01:14:00] the landscape slopes down to the right quite steeply and the ROV traverses along slope. [01:19:00]-[01:20:00] another buried carbonate ledge – stop to image. [01:22:00] ridge feature with heavy mud draping, small patch of denser pebbles and cobbles on the ledge with a few actinostolid anemones then [01:23:00] transition back to traversing along the mud slope with sparse pebbles/cobbles. [01:29:00] [4] The juvenile seapen aggregation begins again, with rare other (mainly fully grown) sea pen species interspersed but vastly dominated by juvenile Pennatula aculeata. [00:33:00] stop briefly for imagery. [00:36:00] Here seapens continue, but there are also many xenophyophores until [00:27:00] where the seapens are dense. [01:44:00] a single large boulder is encountered, it is sparsely colonised. The seapen aggregation continues until the END VIDEO [02:00:00] / 00:23.