|
|
| | 1. Members of the CATALYST ONE expedition team prepare for a sunrise launch in December 2008 of one of two 6,000-meter autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), owned by the Waitt Institute for Discovery. The AUVs were developed at WHOI and were used by scientists at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution to create the first-ever high definition side-scan sonar maps of deep-water Lophelia and Oculina coral reefs off the coast of eastern Florida. The expedition was the first in a new partnership between WHOI and the Waitt Institute for Discovery to make available to a wide range of science users a versatile and highly portable deep-sea tool kit and operations team that is rapidly deployable all over the world.
(Photo by Mike Purcell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 2. Expedition leader Will Sellers evaluates oncoming ocean swells as the crew prepares to lower the remotely operated vehicle Jason to the Pacific's Juan de Fuca Ridge. Now in their third incarnation, the Jason vehicles have been taking researchers to the seafloor (without leaving the deck of a ship) for more than 20 years.
(Photo by Lance Wills, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 3. The autonomous underwater vehicle Sentry is lowered into the North Atlantic for deep-ocean testing during a cruise on the R/V Oceanus in April 2008.
(Photo by Chris German, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 4. Whale specialist Natacha Aguilar De Soto of the University of La Laguna (Canary Islands) and WHOI bio-engineer Mark Johnson analyze large files of numerical data collected by digital tags (or D-tags) that had been attached to pilot whales. The tags, designed by Johnson, record depth and water temperature, the whale’s body orientation and tail strokes, the sounds emitted from and reflected back to the whale, and other sounds in the ocean. From these, they construct a picture of each dive.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 5. Researchers clean the muck from their sensors at the end of a day in the Waves Over Really Muddy Seafloors Experiment (WormsEx) along the Louisiana coast. Scientists affiliated with WHOI's PVLab examined how the mud and goo of the seafloor can dissipate the energy of ocean waves in the Gulf of Mexico. But getting answers meant getting gear and people dirty. Diver and student Jared Shwartz (University of Rhode Island) uses a power-washer to clean an acoustic current meter. In the background, from left to right: Bill Boyd puts away a clean mooring part; Steve Elgar (orange shirt) disassembles a mooring; Britt Raubenheimer (red shirt) cleans a small part with a wire brush; Erika Ladoceur coils some lines; and Whit, seeing-eye guide dog and beach bum, is waiting for something fun to happen.
(Photo by Levi Gorrell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 6. On the research vessel Oceanus in May 2008, the backside of a hatch to the lower decks serves as the bulletin board and presentation backdrop for oceanographer Dennis McGillicuddy as he briefs the science team. In the final science meeting of a cruise to study harmful algal blooms in New England waters, McGillicuddy points out the concentrations of Alexandrium fundyense that the group observed in the western Gulf of Maine—four times higher than has ever been measured in the region at that time of year. The data lent credence to earlier predictions of a potentially large bloom season.
(Photo by Erin Dupuis, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 7. Engineer Bob Elder prepares the REMUS 6000 autonomous underwater vehicle for testing in the harbor of Woods Hole in May 2008.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 8. The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry is recovered after a dive in the North Atlantic during an April 2008 test cruise on the research vessel Oceanus. From left: WHOI engineers Rod Catanach and Al Duester, boatswain Clindor Cacho, and Andy Billings (partly hidden behind Clindor).
(Photo by Chris German, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 9. WHOI engineering assistants Jim Dunn (center) and Jim Ryder (right) and a member of the crew of the research vessel Connecticut deploy a right whale autodetection buoy in Massachusetts Bay in June 2008. Designed and built at WHOI, the moored buoy is instrumented with an underwater microphone—or hydrophone—that listens for the calls of right whales along the main shipping lanes into Massachusetts Bay and Boston Harbor.
(Photo by Matthew Barton, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 10. WHOI's newest autonomous underwater vehicle, Sentry, is launched from the research vessel Thomas Thompson in August 2008 during the AUV's first scientific expedition. The vehicle surveyed and helped pinpoint several proposed deep-water sites for seafloor instruments that will be deployed in the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). Pictured are WHOI engineers James Kinsey and Andy Billings, both from the Department of Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering
(Photo by Erich Horgan, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 11. This spring, two blackboards from 1986 were unearthed during renovations of Smith Building in Woods Hole, 22 years to the day they were sealed away behind a new wall. Gene Terray had authored the math formulas written on the boards. They include an analysis of an instrument that today is widely used in oceanographic research: the broadband acoustic Doppler current profiler, or ADCP. As pleased as Terray was to see the formulas, he was struck by unrelated notes people had added in 1986, including the cost of gas (82.9 cents a gallon).
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 12. Engineer Keith Von Der Heydt connects cables in Woods Hole prior to testing acoustic source drivers, in preparation for deployment for the "Surface Processes and Acoustic Communications Experiment," also known as SPACE. The objective is to understand how wind and waves, or anything that causes bubbles to form in the water, changes the propagation of acoustic signals, particularly those associated with acoustic communications. "It is a tough problem as sound speed in water is much slower, has much less bandwidth, and has more troublesome characteristics than radio (waves) in the air," Von Der Heydt said.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | | 13. Members of the REMUS 6000 Operations Group Stephen Murphy (right) and Mark Dennett (left) roll out one of two newly-built Hydroid REMUS 6000 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) for transport to Florida. The AUVs, designed and developed by WHOI's Ocean Systems Lab, were commissioned by the Waitt Institute for Discovery as a key component of its new partnership with WHOI. The partnership—called the CATALYST Program—takes an innovative approach to deep-sea exploration by making available versatile and portable deep-sea survey and mapping tools and a WHOI-based operations team, which can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world.
(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) | Last updated: July 23, 2009 |
