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Knife’s Edge

November 11, 2013

The long arm of Jason, the deep-diving remotely operated vehicle, was equipped with a serrated knife in 2012 to cut a mooring line 6,000 meters (nearly 4 miles) beneath the surface. The line helped anchor instruments for an experiment led by physical oceanographer Ruth Curry who put six moorings on the seafloor to measure deep-sea currents. When a team went to retrieve the instruments, a trigger mechanism failed to release the critical sixth mooring. By chance, Curry was able to bring in Jason and its talented crew to retrieve her instruments and data. Watch a video to see what happened. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)