Gulf Coast Research Laboratory

Provides technical support for research programs of The University of Southern Mississippi
Conducts contract work for programs of other institutions
Is working toward certification by the American Association of Underwater Sciences (AAUS)

From 1999 to 2004 the GCRL program cooperated with the dive programs of Mote Marine Lab, the Oceanic Institute and other institutions to conduct releases of GCRL hatchery-reared juvenile red snapper and to assess release sites and snapper abundance on the sites located approximately 30 miles south in the northern Gulf of Mexico.
The scientific dive program completed a total of 253 dives in 1999 and 182 in 2000.
In 1999 GCRL divers conducted the first release ever of juvenile red snapper on offshore artificial reefs. Divers successfully released at 70- to 80-foot depths a total of 1,200 red snapper raised at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.
Five GCRL divers received certification using nitrox, oxygen-enriched air that generally allows GCRL divers working on Gulf of Mexico research to stay down longer with less time between dives.
The GCRL scientific dive program has established a scientific dive library of textbooks, professional periodicals, and scientific diving manuals from other institutions.
The Gulf Coast Research Laboratory established the scientific dive program in January 1999 as a means to recognize, manage and control research diving needs for the Laboratory. The program instituted a diving control board comprised of active scientific divers to regulate the program and to provide guidelines published in the program's diving safety manual.