Researchers will use two new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)--Puma and Jaguar--in tandem to locate hydrothermal vent sites on the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean. (Illustration by E. Paul Oberlander, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
More information can be found on the project website.
Scientists and engineers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have just completed a successful test of new robotic vehicles designed for use beneath the ice of the Arctic Ocean. The multidisciplinary research team will now use those vehicles to conduct the first search for life on the seafloor of the world's most isolated ocean.
WHOI researchers have built two new autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and a new tethered, remote controlled sampling system specifically for the difficult challenges of operations in the Arctic ice. They hope to discover exotic seafloor life and submarine hot springs in a region of the ocean that has been mostly cut off from other ecosystems for at least 26 million years.
The 30-member research team will depart on July 1 from Longyearbyen, Svalbard, for a rare expedition to study the Gakkel Ridge, the extension of the mid-ocean ridge system which separates the North American tectonic plate from the Eurasian plate beneath the Arctic Ocean.
The 40-day cruise on the Odensa 108-meter long (354-foot) icebreaker operated by the Swedish Maritime Administration will take researchers close to the geographic North Pole.
The research team for the Arctic Gakkel Vents Expedition (AGAVE) includes specialists in each field of deep-sea exploration, with scientists and engineers from the United States, Norway, Germany, Japan, and Sweden.
WHOI geophysicist Robert Reves-Sohn will serve as chief scientist. Fellow principal investigators include: Tim Shank, a hydrothermal vent biologist from WHOI; Hanumant Singh, a WHOI engineer and vehicle developer; marine chemist Henrietta Edmonds of the University of Texas at Austin, who sailed on the last research expedition to the Gakkel Ridge in 2001; Susan Humphris, a WHOI geochemist who has surveyed dozens of hydrothermal vent sites around the world; and Peter Winsor, a WHOI oceanographer who studies Arctic Ocean circulation and its implications for climate.
Major funding for the expedition and for vehicle development was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
"This is an exciting opportunity to explore and study a portion of Earth's surface that has been largely inaccessible to science," said Reves-Sohn. "Any biological habitats at hydrothermal vent fields along the Gakkel Ridge have likely evolved in isolation for tens of millions of years. We may have the opportunity to lay eyes on completely new life forms that have been living in the abyss beneath the Arctic ice pack."
Most of the instrumentation that researchers would normally use to study deep sea environments and organisms, such as the human occupied submersible Alvin or tethered vehicles, cannot be safely operated in the Arctic ice, which can easily crush most small vehicles. So researchers asked Singh and colleagues to design and develop three new vehicles from scratch.
During the July expedition, researchers will use the Puma AUV, or