Wendy Laursen
Contributing Writer-
Robots as Clever as an Octopus
Octopuses have nine brains, one donut-shaped one in their head plus a small one in each of their eight arms. They can use tools, solve puzzles, and recognize human faces.Take Otto, an octopus that once lived in the SeaStar Aquarium in Germany. He was known to squirt water onto an annoying light above his tank, short-circuiting the lights in the entire building. Employees said he got bored when the aquarium was closed and would rearrange the tank…
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Western Australia Can’t Wait [for a Decommissioning Hub]
The Northern Endeavour FPSO is being shipped by a Chinese heavy lift ship from Australia to Denmark for recycling.Installed between the Laminaria and Corallina oil fields in the Timor Sea and unproductive since 2019, its fate became the burden of the Australian government after it underwent a string of ownership changes.Australia doesn’t have the recycling facilities needed for the job, although the government has been taking some action on the issue.
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Wine Down Under
Brad Adams, co-founder of Subsea Estate in Western Australia, has just retrieved vats of his latest wine from the seabed just off the coast of Augusta.Partnered with wife and co-founder Jodee Adams and chief wine maker Emmanuel Poirmeur, he is creating a product unique in the southern hemisphere.For the last two years, Subsea Estate has produced Semillon and Shiraz that has undergone its secondary…
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LARS: Not Just a Simple Handling Tool
Launch and recovery are often the riskiest parts of a subsea operation, and as iDROP COO David Galbraith points out, with a payload of new data, subsea vehicles are more valuable on recovery than they were on launch.For iDrop, the challenge is how to launch and recover large numbers of its autonomous ocean bottom nodes (OBNs). The current method for laying OBNs, which catch reflected waves during seismic surveys, involves specialist vessels and crews.
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Autonomy and Route Optimization Lead AI Research Boom
The first applications of AI in ocean science and maritime engineering date back to the 2000s, and a paper recently published in Ocean Engineering tracks the subsequent growth in the number of scientific studies charting its advance.Since 2018, the number of studies using AI techniques has been doubling each year, reaching 1,329 in 2022. This growth corresponds with developments in autonomous vessel and vehicle navigation…
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Plastic Free July and a Treaty in the Making
Around 170 million people participate in Plastic Free July each year. It’s a month-long challenge to avoid as much single-use plastics as possible.“We ingest about the equivalent of a credit card of microplastics every week*, and these tiny particles of plastic have found their way to our blood and brains,” said Greenpeace during the month. “Scientists are only beginning to understand the long-term effects of plastics on our health…
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Good Ocean, Good Business
There is an estimated 3.5 million square miles of ocean space suitable for finfish mariculture and about five times that suitable for seaweed production. It’s a potential that is being realized around the world as new projects generate benefits for rural communities, cities and the environment.In Papua New Guinea, the UN Sustainable Development Group is focusing on creating meaningful, sustainable livelihoods for women and youth in Kimbe Bay…
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An Oceanographic Music Mix
Music has an important role to play in climate crisis discourse, offering a sonic pathway to bridge the gap between data, understanding, reflection and action, say researchers from Australia’s Monash University.Their Dark Oceanography initiative integrates climate science with experimental music. Following the pathways of eddies from the Eastern Australian Current through the Southern Ocean and across the globe…
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S-100 has Value Beyond ECDIS
The S-100 framework is a new global standard created by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), in collaboration with other hydrographic offices around the world, that enables the integration of diverse datasets within a single Electronic Chart Display and Information System (ECDIS).Mariners will be able to combine various data layers with Electronic Navigational Charts including detailed…
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Anthropocene Markers
For a while, the thin layer of plutonium that encircled the globe after the first nuclear weapons tests was considered the leading geological marker for a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, the time when human impact on the earth became profound.Geologists have been able to measure a distinctive spike in the concentration of plutonium in ocean sediments from the US tests in the Marshall Islands…
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Subsea Warfare Need Not Involve Target Destruction
This week, two unmanned surface vessels (USVs) were launched as part of a trial by Denmark's defense ministry aimed at boosting the nation’s maritime surveillance capabilities.Countries bordering the Baltic Sea are on high alert after a number of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.As defense analyst David R.
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Ice “Memory” to be Protected in Antarctica
The Ice Memory Foundation is preparing for the upcoming transport of ice cores from mountain glaciers to the Ice Memory Sanctuary in Antarctica.The announcement was made as part of the launch of the UN Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences (2025-2034) during the third UN Ocean Conference in Nice on June 8.Preserved in the Ice Memory Sanctuary at Concordia Station, the cores will be available for…
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Upscaling Power Subsea: Cables and Connectors
Cable and connector manufacturers are rushing to meet the growing demand for subsea cables and connectors as renewables upscale, but whether it’s renewables or oil and gas, there’s also growing demand for high-tech subsea communications.The export cables that bring offshore wind power to shore are already so massive that one meter of cable can weigh 300kg. Nexans had previously upscaled its production facilities to cater for increasing demand…
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An Unintentional Iron Fertilization Experiment
The idea of fertilizing the ocean with iron, an element essential for the growth of phytoplankton, is being considered as a climate change mitigation measure - when they die, phytoplankton take carbon into the deep ocean.However, concerns have been raised about large scale intentional iron fertilization that may limit its effectiveness as a carbon dioxide removal strategy. A major one is nutrient robbing…
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The Soundscape Code
Damselfish can make pops, clicks and chirps by grinding their teeth. When seeking a mate, some can make more high-pitched sounds.Another coral reef dweller, the snapping shrimp, makes a sound with its large claw to stun its prey or deter predators. A cavitation bubble is formed when the claw opens and closes rapidly, and the sound is produced when the bubble collapses.It’s sounds like these that can be used as a proxy measure for reef health.
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Artificial Reef or Ecological Trap
There’s not a lot of data on the underwater ecosystems developing on and under floating wind structures; there’s just not that many of these farms installed yet.A recent study by researchers in Scottish set out to analyze what data there is and to hypothesize about what the potential positive and negative effects might be for marine life.It’s potentially important because floating offshore wind is being developed on highly productive shelf seas.
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Fugro’s Blue Eclipse® USV Makes Commercial Debut
This week, Fugro announced the first commercial contract for its Blue Eclipse® uncrewed surface vessel (USV).For the first time in its history, Norway’s MAREANO will use USV technology to acquire seabed mapping data for the Norwegian Hydrographic Service.The Blue Eclipse®, the largest USV in Fugro’s fleet, will survey over 675 square kilometers in the North Sea, with water depths ranging from 90 to 250 meters.Equipped with advanced high-resolution…
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Naturally Quiet
The Arctic’s bowhead whales can live for over 200 years. Imagine what they might hear in that time: screw propellers were only just being used to power ships 200 years ago, and diesel engines appeared some hundred years after that.The underwater radiated noise of shipping has grown globally, but the Arctic is a special place. It has been partially shielded from shipping noise. Sea ice shields and diffuses underwater sound…
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Quantum Sensing Beats GPS-Denied Navigational Challenges
The same error-prone sensitivity that has slowed down the development of quantum computers is being turned into an advantage for GPS-denied navigation.A new quantum sensing technology from Australia-based Q-CTRL has most recently caught the interest of Lockheed Martin and the US Defense Innovation Unit, but the company is already working with the Australian Department of Defence, the UK Royal Navy…
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Machine Learning Versus Statistics
A study published last week used a wave flume to evaluate the effects of waves on small-diameter pipelines. The experimental data was interpreted statistically and using machine learning.The difference between the two is fundamental.As a University of North Dakota blog pointed out recently: In statistics, the main objective is to understand relationships between variables, make predictions, test scientific hypotheses and provide explanations based on data.
August 2025
