There is a great need to increase the efficiency of marine research. Building global ocean mapping infrastructure is difficult given the financial costs and human effort required in traditional oceanographic technology.
The Mariana region is home to the Mariana subduction system. This November, scientists shed light on the Mariana back-arc spreading center looking for new sites of hydrothermal activity.
Rising temperatures, ocean acidification, and overfishing have now gained widespread notoriety as human-caused phenomena that are changing our seas.
The very deepest reaches of the sea are one of the planet’s last true frontiers. In November, RV Falkor sailed to the Mariana Trench with a group of biologists and geologists to conduct a new study of one of the deepest places in the world.
At the end of March, Falkor headed to a spectacular, isolated, coral wonder known as Scott Reef. The goals of this project were to improve techniques and algorithms for efficiently coordinating deployments of multiple exploratory vehicles so they can be left unattended to accomplish tasks like detailed seafloor mapping.
In June of 2013, R/V Falkor will be using the hybrid underwater robotic vehicle Nereus, to explore the depths of the Mid-Cayman Rise, which reaches more than 6,500 meters (~4 miles)
This unpresented study of microbes and viruses that live within the rocky layers of the seafloor was conducted using ROV ROPOS, 575 kilometers southwest of the underwater volcano Axial Seamount.
AUV Sentry will be used at Hawaii’s underwater volcano, Loihi Seamount, whose base remains largely unexplored. The team will survey and sample the seamount to better understand the dispersion of hydrothermal fluids from Loihi to the Pacific Ocean.
