CSUN GROUP DIVES INTO TASK PROF, STUDENTS HEAD UNDERSEA OFF FLORIDA KEYS.

Byline: Lisa M. Sodders Staff Writer

NORTHRIDGE - Underwater research isn't as glamorous as Jacques Cousteau made it look.

``You may be going out in 6-foot, 7-foot seas; you barf over the side of the boat, stick a regulator in your mouth and go down and get the job done,'' said Peter Edmunds, professor of biology at California State University, Northridge.

Last week, Edmunds traveled to Florida to investigate the effects of global climate change on the biology of coral larvae.

Three other researchers and five graduate and undergraduate students, including four from CSUN, were going to work with him in the 10-day research trip. Half of the team planned to live in an underwater lab the size of a mobile home, with equipment ranging from sophisticated, expensive machines to larvae traps made from control-top pantyhose.

The Discovery Channel will make a 60-minute program for ``Science in the Deep'' on the entire endeavor. An air date has not yet be set for the program.

``It's a dream come true,'' said Sergio Saucedo, a CSUN undergraduate student from Panorama City, about his chance for hands-on research in the Florida Keys.

Unlike their counterparts at most universities, CSUN undergraduates have ample opportunity to apply their classroom lessons to the real world, campus officials said.

``One of the things about science and biology in particular that we're very proud of at CSUN is that we have a very strong research program that involves not just our graduate students, but undergrads as well,'' said Jim Dole, chairman of the CSUN Biology Department.

``We've had numerous undergraduate students who have been authors on publications in scientific journals, and that's almost unheard of,'' Dole said. ``We've had undergraduates give presentations at national scientific meetings in front of scientists.''

During the project in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, four team members are living with technicians from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the Aquarius undersea lab off Key Largo.

The lab, which is owned by NOAA and operated by the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, is an 80-ton cylindrical chamber that is 43 feet long and 12 feet in diameter.

``You drive 3 1/2 miles off shore, 60 feet underwater, and park next to a coral reef,'' said Steven Miller, director of the National Undersea Research Center at Wilmington. ``Not a bad parking place.''

The rest of the team was assigned to stay in relatively comfy digs - one of the research center's condominiums - and make dives down to the research area near the Aquarius.

Miller said Edmunds' project is important for a number of reasons.

``It's cutting-edge science, to begin with, and an issue of both regional and global significance,'' Miller said. ``It's a good, multidisciplinary team. They've been productive in the past working with our program and carrying out the work they've proposed. They're accomplished people.''

Research is critical if the world's coral reefs are to be preserved, Miller said.

``Coral reefs are absolutely under siege,'' Miller said. ``We have seen changes in the last 10 years that swamp anything we could have imagined in terms of coral deaths and an increase in disease and algae to one of the most spectacular ecosystems on our planet, and we are hard-pressed to explain a lot of the causes.''

The coral reefs - the only coral reef system in the continental United States - help sustain a $1.2 billion-a-year tourism and fishing industry in Southern Florida, Miller said. The reefs also provide erosion protection for coastlines and a home for a host of other sea creatures, including some that may hold the key to new, life-saving drugs.

``Extinction is forever,'' Edmunds added. ``There's a very strong likelihood that there's a wealth of medically active compounds in coral reef organisms.''

Miller said the reefs can be compared with the country's national parks in their breadth and beauty.

``It really is one of the great treasures, equal to Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon,'' Miller said. ``A lot of people don't know about it because it's under water.''

Most of what people see in a coral reef is actually dead coral, Edmunds said. The living portion is actually a thin layer, which he compared to a film of plastic wrapped around a cinder block. Coral can feed as a plant does, through photosynthesis, or as an animal does, by capturing small crustaceans.

Edmunds' team will collect coral larvae from a particular kind of coral, the Yellow Mustard Hill coral or Porites astreiodes, to determine how they are affected by warmer seawater temperatures.

The traps they will use are made from control-top pantyhose, Edmunds explained: A mesh circle holds the bottom of one leg open, with a centrifuge jar secured at the toe to collect the larvae when they are released by the coral.

``A lot of research takes place with creativity and lots of bits and pieces from Home Depot and Target,'' Edmunds said, with a grin.

But the team also will have access to some sophisticated equipment, including a pulse amplitude modulation fluorometer, a $13,000 piece of equipment that helps analyze how the algae utilize sunlight in photosynthesis.

The surface team will only be able to spend about an hour at a time on the bottom. As divers breathe a special, enriched mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, inert gases accumulate in their blood and tissues.

The depth of the water and the amount of time spent at such depth determine how long a diver can stay underwater without risking decompression sickness, also known as ``the bends.'' If a diver surfaces too quickly, the inert gases bubble out of the blood and tissues.

Because those on the Aquarius will be acclimated to living 60 feet underwater, they will be able to dive for six hours a day in water as deep as 100 feet, Edmunds said.

Edmunds' research is sponsored by NOAA. He estimated that it costs the federal government roughly $10,000 a day for a project like his. He has done research aboard the Aquarius before, which is why he is leading the surface team on this trip. One of the unfortunate side-effects of saturation diving is nitrogen narcosis, which Edmunds described as feeling like a constant ``two-beer buzz,'' making it difficult to concentrate and plan.

Having part of the team on land and part underwater, however, makes sense, Edmunds said. The underwater team can collect larvae at 10 p.m. and perform experiments without taking the larvae out of their natural environment.

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Photo:

Northridge professor Peter Edmunds shows coral specimens. Local students Casey Terhorst, left, and Sergio Saucedo are in his undersea research team.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer