Post by Naught on Sept 13, 2010 8:13:15 GMT 10
UVic team goes deep to install ‘eye’ on ocean floor
A team of scientists and engineers will sail off from Esquimalt Sunday on a month-long journey to complete the installation of the world’s first ocean observatory that takes in an entire region and plugs directly into the Internet.
After more than a decade of planning, research and scientific input, led by the University of Victoria, NEPTUNE Canada scientists head off to lay the final stretch of power and Internet cable as well as plug in instruments at the volcanically active Endeavour Ridge.
Marine scientist Mairi Best, co-chief of the expedition along with Lucy Pautet, says she will likely chew her fingernails and gnaw on her knuckles as the crew attempts to lay the final three sets of six kilometre-long cables, 2.3 km below the surface.
“This is probably the most hostile area we are going to be working in,” Best said. “It’s not only exceedingly deep, but very volcanic reactive.”
The scientists and engineers will pilot equipment around glass-sharp mountaintops, vast chasms and steaming hot vents, which spew out plumes of corrosive minerals and gases at temperatures reaching 300 degrees C.
“Laying the cable out in a straight line is much harder than you might think,” Best said.
She described it as akin to trying to lay out wet thread over a two-kilometre distance. To snarl the cable is easy; to unsnarl it is very difficult.
“All of this is just to get, essentially, your extension cord from the wall plug to the power bar,” explained Best.
Then in some of the most hostile underwater territory between the spreading Juan de Fuca and Pacific tectonic plates,
I live on the juan de fuca straight. This is where my whale encounters come from
www.timescolonist.com/news/UVic+team+goes+deep+install+ocean+floor/3512632/story.html
A team of scientists and engineers will sail off from Esquimalt Sunday on a month-long journey to complete the installation of the world’s first ocean observatory that takes in an entire region and plugs directly into the Internet.
After more than a decade of planning, research and scientific input, led by the University of Victoria, NEPTUNE Canada scientists head off to lay the final stretch of power and Internet cable as well as plug in instruments at the volcanically active Endeavour Ridge.
Marine scientist Mairi Best, co-chief of the expedition along with Lucy Pautet, says she will likely chew her fingernails and gnaw on her knuckles as the crew attempts to lay the final three sets of six kilometre-long cables, 2.3 km below the surface.
“This is probably the most hostile area we are going to be working in,” Best said. “It’s not only exceedingly deep, but very volcanic reactive.”
The scientists and engineers will pilot equipment around glass-sharp mountaintops, vast chasms and steaming hot vents, which spew out plumes of corrosive minerals and gases at temperatures reaching 300 degrees C.
“Laying the cable out in a straight line is much harder than you might think,” Best said.
She described it as akin to trying to lay out wet thread over a two-kilometre distance. To snarl the cable is easy; to unsnarl it is very difficult.
“All of this is just to get, essentially, your extension cord from the wall plug to the power bar,” explained Best.
Then in some of the most hostile underwater territory between the spreading Juan de Fuca and Pacific tectonic plates,
I live on the juan de fuca straight. This is where my whale encounters come from
www.timescolonist.com/news/UVic+team+goes+deep+install+ocean+floor/3512632/story.html