In the 1972 folk-rock classic “A Horse with No Name,” Dewey Bunnell, fronting the band America, famously sang: “The ocean is a desert with its life underground.” Indeed, marine biologists term some areas of Earth’s seas “biological deserts,” due to the fact that vast swaths of open ocean lack the phytoplankton to serve as the foundation for robust food webs like those seen around coral reefs and coastal estuaries.
But you wouldn’t think the ocean was a vast waste based on these photos, recently shared by the New England Aquarium, taken during aerial surveys this month in waters surrounding the Northwest Canyons and Seamount Marine National Monument. This protected area, stretching more than 4,900 square miles about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod, contains underwater volcanoes and canyons that host a profusion of sea life—from deep-sea corals and seabirds to marine mammals and abundant fish.
Read more: “The Marvelous Seamounts of the Southeast Pacific”
The images show hundreds of dolphins of four different species, humpback whales, manta rays, whale sharks, and even endangered blue and fin whales—more than 2,000 individual animals in total.
“The diversity of sightings was truly remarkable and a testament to why the Monument is such a special habitat,” said Katherine McKenna, an associate research scientist in the New England Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center, which conducted the survey, in a statement. “From regular visitors like dolphins and sperm whales, to large baleen whales drawn by aggregations of zooplankton and whale sharks and manta rays following warm Gulf Stream waters, the Monument brings together an incredible variety of marine life.”
President Barack Obama designated the area as a fully protected marine national monument in 2016, making it the first of its kind in the Atlantic Ocean. But more recently, the Trump administration rolled back some of the federal protections and has reopened the area to commercial fishing.
Feast your eyes on the dazzling array of charismatic marine life, which show in living color how vibrant and diverse the area is. 
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Lead Image: New England Aquarium
