ANOMALOUS H I IN NGC 2997

We present deep H I observations of the moderately inclined spiral galaxy, NGC2997. The goal of these observations was to search for Hi clouds in the vicinity of NGC 2997 analogous to the high-velocity clouds of the Milky Way and gain insight into their origins. We find evidence for the presence of a galactic fountain as well as the accretion of intragalactic material, however we do not identify any large clouds of Hi far from the disk of the galaxy. NGC 2997 has a thick, lagging Hi disk that is modeled with a vertical velocity gradient of 18-31 km s(-1) kpc(-1). Anomalous velocity Hi clouds with masses of order 10(7) M(circle dot), which cannot be explained by galactic fountain models allow us to estimate a lower limit to the accretion of extragalactic gas of 1.2 M(circle dot) yr(-1). The number and mass of these clouds have implications for cosmological simulations of large-scale structure and the presence of dark matter halos. We have used values from the literature to estimate a star formation rate of 5 +/- 1 M(circle dot) yr(-1) and to derive a new distance to NGC 2997 of 12.2 +/- 0.9 Mpc using published Tully-Fisher relations.