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Smarter Than the Average ROV

March 30, 2017

Dave Lovalvo, president of Global Foundation for Ocean Exploration, deploys a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to examine the geothermically active bottom of Yellowstone Lake in Wyoming. WHOI scientist Rob Sohn, who has explored hydrothermal vents on the deep seafloor, is leading the HD-YLAKE project a multiyear expedition that brings technology normally used in the deep ocean to investigate the hidden fount of hydrothermal activity going on beneath the lake surface. Yellowstone Lake has the world’s largest hydrothermal explosion craters—formed by catastrophic explosions of steam. The ROV is named Yogi after the inquisitive picnic basket-stealing cartoon bear that inhabited “Jellystone.” (Photo by Chris Linder, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)