Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - images: whoi

In an effort to study the ocean over months and even years scientists and engineers are leaving instruments in the ocean secured by wires, buoys, weights, and floats, also known as the moored observatory. Each approach has advanced our understanding of the oceans and their interaction with the Earth and the atmosphere. Because of advances in computing, telecommunications, and marine architecture, researchers no longer want to just observe the ocean for short periods in small places. Ocean observatories explore fundamental questions using acoustic modems, fiber optic cables that stretch beneath the ocean for miles, and satellite communications. Sustaining these operations for months or years at a time help scientists observe how the Earth, ocean and atmosphere evolve.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institutions submersible Alvin began undergoing a series of pressure tests at a facility in Annapolis, Maryland this week. The tests are being conducted to see how it reacts to pressures simulating depths from 6,500 to 8,000 meters or 4-5 miles. To build in a safety factor, one test dive will put the sphere under pressure of 12,000 pounds per square inch, simulating a depth of about 8,000 meters, or 5 miles. If all goes according to plan, the new sphere will be transported to WHOI, arriving sometime during the first week of July. There, engineers will reassemble the newest incarnation of Alvin. It will have five viewports, compared with the three that previous Alvins had.

In 2010 marine scientist from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab were in the field collecting water samples following the Deep Horizon oil spill. Dr. Monty Graham was one of those scientists who discovered some unusual objects bobbing in the water some 32 miles south off the coast of Alabama. According to Graham the water was flat when they noticed  “odd white things with an oily halo in the water all around them.” The scientists looked for traces of the oil slick on the surface but found none. These objects that were floating along intertwined in the sargassum, and ran in an east to west direction for some 6 miles. The scientists collected samples in this location, and two days later in another location some 25 miles from Dauphin Island.

Recently scientists have discovered a new ocean current. The previously unknown current is located off the coast of Iceland and was verified by a Woods Hole Oceanographic team lead by oceanographer Bob Pickart, The current is called the North Icelandic Jet current and has proven to be an important aspect in oceanic currents that transport equatorial heat to the North Atlantic therefore tempering the climate. During an expedition cruise on board the WHOI vessel Knorr, Prickart, along with colleagues from MRI and the University of Bergen in Norway took detailed water measurements confirming the existence of the current. The international teams findings were published in Nature Geoscience.