Gulf in Depth

Artist Boat and Moody Gardens are celebrating the new Gulf in Depth exhibit with a ribbon cutting on October 16th, featuring a series of 3 hands-on stations created by Artist Boat to shed light on the depths of the Gulf and the restoration of mesophotic and deep benthic coral communities that live there. The exhibit was designed in collaboration with restoration experts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid conservation staff, interpretive program experts at Artist Boat, MuseWorks Exhibits, and Taylor Studios.

Date: Thursday, October 16, 2025

Time: 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm

Location: Moody Gardens Visitors Center

This FREE event includes:

• Interactive Livestream Connection with an Expedition Currently at Sea
• Ribbon Cutting of the New Exhibit Stations
• Educational Booths with Giveaways
• Meet and Greet with Restoration Divers
• Q&A session with experts

The Gulf in Depth exhibit highlights the vibrant ecosystems that exist from the surface of the Gulf to thousands of feet below, including rarely-seen areas inaccessible by scuba divers. Interactive elements help visitors understand the vast impacts the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had on fish, crustaceans, and deep-sea corals and how experts are restoring important seafloor habitats through the Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities (MDBC) projects. In this exhibit, guests will have numerous ways to learn about Gulf ecosystems, including an intricate light-up model of the depth zones of the Gulf and its many fascinating creatures, flip-through layers of engaging illustrations comparing animals before and after the spill, a hands-on activity to discover how deep-sea mapping helps scientists see the seafloor and find corals, and real video footage from recent restoration expeditions in the Gulf.

The Gulf in Depth exhibit will be housed in the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid and is free with Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid admission.

Mesophotic and deep benthic habitats, or areas of the seafloor that see little to no sunlight, are home to a complex community of fish, corals, and other invertebrates. In the Gulf, these habitats faced an unprecedented threat in 2010 when an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform led to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. More than 770 square miles of deep-sea habitat were injured, an area a bit bigger than Houston. After the spill, federal and state agencies formed the Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustee Council (DWH Trustees) to assess the impacts and identify and implement actions to restore injured habitats, species, and the services they   provide. In 2019, the Open Ocean Trustees selected four Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities (MDBC) restoration projects–focused on mapping and habitat modeling, coral propagation, habitat assessment, and active management–to be implemented in the northern Gulf. The goals of these projects are to improve understanding of MDBCs to inform management and ensure resiliency, restore injured species, actively manage and protect valuable habitats, and provide a framework for monitoring, education, and outreach. NOAA and the Department of the Interior are leading these efforts for the DWH Open Ocean Trustees to restore deep-sea communities injured by the spill. They work with many partners to implement these projects and spend months at sea each year to complete crucial field work to inform and conduct restoration activities