Physical, environmental, and biotic observations derived from underwater video collected offshore of south-central California in support of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Cal DIG I offshore alternative energy project

Physical, environmental, and biotic observations were derived from underwater video collected by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) offshore of Morro Bay, California. The data were acquired during three separate surveys in 2019 in support of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)/Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) California Deepwater Investigations and Groundtruthing I (Cal DIG I) project. Transect information developed to analyze the data for biotopes (as described in Kuhnz and others, 2021) and the resulting biotope numbers are included in the point data. A joint USGS-BOEM-MBARI cruise, which took place from 19-26 September 2019 on the R/V Bold Horizon (USGS field activity 2019-642-FA), focused on conducting biological surveys using MBARI's MiniROV (dives M137-148). Additional surveys were conducted from 02-14 February 2019 (dives D1120-1131) and from 01-11 November 2019 (dives D1202-1217) using MBARI's R/V Western Flyer and ROV Doc Ricketts. The ROV-video surveys were designed and conducted to collect video ground-truth information about substrate and biota.