Correspondence of sea fan orientations with measured currents on hard bottom habitats of the Mississippi/Alabama continental shelf

The orientations of 368 gorgonian and antipatharian sea fans were measured using video taken with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) within five study areas on the Mississippi/Alabama continental shelf. Sea fans were oriented nonrandomly and exhibited a strongly preferred direction of orientation at each of the five study sites. Orientations corresponded closely to the mean direction of the time-averaged current flow measured synoptically from 11 current meters in the vicinity of the study sites.