Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - bluefin

The VENUS observatory in the Salish Sea is represented by a series of installations in Saanich Inlet and Strait of Georgia. The Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea (VENUS) has been in continual operation since February, 2006 and is operated by Ocean Networks Canada at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. The cabled instrument arrays are deployed in the coastal waters of southern British Columbia, and the facility provides long-term oceanographic data on physical, chemical, biological, and sediment conditions in Saanich Inlet and in the Strait of Georgia near Vancouver, British Columbia. The data, including images and audio, are processed and made available to researchers and the public through the VENUS website.

Bluefin Robotics’ Bluefin-21 is a highly modular AUV able to carry multiple sensors and comprehensive payloads, while at the same time boasting a high-energy capacity that enables extended operations even at the greatest depths. The Bluefin-21 was designed to operate from various ships of opportunity worldwide and has a software package that is flexible, robust, customizable and user-friendly, while also having advanced autonomy and behaviors. Bluefin’s next generation behavior control system provides a highly flexible system for accomplishing the goals specified in a mission plan. This behavior control facilitates dynamic insertion, removal, and modification of mission elements during execution. This is a vital capability in the often uncertain and noisy environments that AUVs face.

It is widely known that for at least two weeks after Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors were damaged by a massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami on 11 March 2011, large quantities of radioactive material leaked directly from the plants into the Pacific Ocean. A study by scientists from Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station and Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) revealed that Pacific Bluefin tuna (Thunnus orientalis) carried traces of radioactive isotopes from Japanese waters to the waters off California. The research additionally pointed out that cesium traces from Fukushima’s radioactively contaminated water found in fish are potentially a very useful tool to trace the origin and timing of animal movements.