Lance Horn carefully steered the remote-controlled robot to a bizarre realm of jagged, ivory-like pinnacles, adorned with alien creatures of brilliant color.

This day, porgies, bigeyes and barracuda dominated the rare reef that few have gazed upon. Then, Horn happened upon something nobody's seen for five years on the Oculina Bank: juvenile black sea bass.

This latest online dispatch from researchers aboard the Liberty Star -- a ship usually used to fetch used shuttle rocket boosters for NASA -- was just one of several clues this week that could help prove whether the rare Oculina coral needs further federal protection.

Today, the researchers return from their seven-day expedition with better video and sound footage of one of the most biologically productive deep-sea reefs in the world.

They hope to learn enough about the reef to determine whether keeping shrimpers out has helped grouper, snapper and other fish recover from decades of nets dragging over and flattening the coral.

They hope the biological evidence they gather can someday earn the reef special designation as a National Marine Sanctuary, bringing more federal dollars to study and protect it.

The Oculina reef grows 200 to 350 feet beneath the sea, about 15 to 30 miles offshore from Fort Pierce north to Daytona Beach, along the edge of the continental shelf. It is home to Oculina varicosa coral, which can branch up 100 feet from the ocean floor.

One pass of a shrimp net can obliterate it, and the coral's destruction is more significant than for other coral, because it grows so slowly. While shallow-water coral branches out as much as 10 inches a year, Oculina grows just a half-inch annually. It forms 3- to 5-foot-long white bushlike branches about the diameter of a human finger. Those grow into volleyball-sized coral bushes that can host up to 2,000 sea creatures each.

"It's very easy to knock down, and it takes a long time to grow back," said Andrew Shepard, a scientist with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration who led this month's expedition.

Oculina history

The first federal protection for the Oculina reef came in 1994, when the government closed a 92-square-mile section, from Fort Pierce to Sebastian Inlet, to any bottom-tending fishing gear, such as trawls, dredges and fish traps.

Two years later, it also banned fishing boats from anchoring on the reef, allowing them only to troll above.

But shrimping boats, which cause the most damage to the coral, still poach the closed portions.

"It has not worked," Ron Rincones, a charter fishing captain from Valkaria said of the closed areas. "That's purely a lack of law enforcement."

He said the addition of a state law enforcement vessel, the C.T. Randall, at Port Canaveral a few years ago has helped, but it's still not enough.

Rincones and other commercial and sport fisherman wish officials would address that issue before adding more layers of rules.

Some sport fishermen remain wary of the National Marine Sanctuary designation and say they'll only support the idea if they can still fish over top of the coral reef.

"It depends upon what it means," said Ted Forsgren, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association of Florida said. "If the idea is to create a National Marine Sanctuary and close it to all fishing, they're not going to get much support from the fishing community."

What it means

The researchers and citizens pushing the sanctuary assure that's not the idea. Instead, they say it could be a way to improve enforcement of existing gear restrictions and a way to ban cruise-ship dumping within the borders of the sanctuary.

As with the other 14 federal marine sanctuaries, those who make their living from the Oculina's marine life could help establish the rules.

Sanctuaries such as the Florida Keys and Monterey Bay ban oil and gas drilling, dredging and other activities that disturb the sea floor.

And the scientists themselves say they need more data from the Oculina reef before they can tell whether the reef needs more protection. They suspect vast coral yet to be discovered beyond the reaches of the closed areas.

During this week's expedition, funded by NOAA, researchers used the underwater robot, mounted with a video and still camera, to verify earlier sonar images that mapped rough features of the Oculina, most of which has not been accurately documented.

The researchers hope to match fish-spawning sounds recorded by Grant Gilmore, a fish biologist from Vero Beach, to the video they took along the reef.

Grass-roots efforts

While more science about the reef could boost the chances of a sanctuary designation, local conservationists can't depend on NOAA to build support or find the money to support it.

"At this point, we're really concentrating on management of the ones we have," said Margo Jackson, senior policy adviser with NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program.

Shepard said the sanctuary has to be a grass-roots effort. It would take at least three to four years and require approval from Congress.

"It's not an easy feat, and it's going to take some real leg work," Shepard said.

A bill proposed this fall by Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Orlando, could bring more protection to the coral and sooner. The act directs the federal government to map the zones where deep-sea coral grows and where bottom trawling occurs, then it would ban trawling in those areas.

"My goal is not to harm the fishing industry," the Florida Republican said in a statement. "My goal is to provide a responsible protection that will conserve critical habitat that coexists with responsible fishing practices."