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ROPOS.
A remotely operated vehicle used at NeMO. ROPOS
descends to the seafloor on a fiber optic cable from the ship. ROPOS
has two manipulator arms, video cameras and lights, and many different
samplers and instruments. |
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Vent
fluid sampler. This is a specially designed
instrument that mounts on the bottom of ROPOS for taking samples of
high- and low-temperature hydrothermal vent fluids. It can also take
filtered samples and gas-tight samples for laboratory analysis. |
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Suction
sampler. This is a versatile sampler which
is mounted on ROPOS, and is somewhat like a vacuum cleaner. It can
sample fluids, sediment, and small animals in up to eight discrete
two liter sample bottles. |
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OSMO
sampler. This osmotic fluid sampler (developed
by MBARI)
is for long-term sampling of vent fluids, for example over a full
year between visits by ROPOS. It consists of an osmotic pump connected
to a very long piece of small-bore sample tubing. |
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Bottom
Pressure Recorder (BPR) The BPR measures
pressure which can be easily converted to depth measurements. The
BPR data will be transmitted to a surface buoy and monitored daily
via satellite communications as part of NeMO
Net.
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Rumbleometer
(or VSM).
This is a multi-sensor seafloor instrument designed for in-situ monitoring
of deep sea volcanic activity. This one got stuck in the 1998 lava
flow and had to be rescued, but it survived and recorded some fascinating
data (see The
rumbleometer story
for more details). |
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Bio-box.
This is a hydraulically-actuated Lexan box mounted
on the front of ROPOS mainly for biological sample storage and transport,
but also a convenient place to put other instruments and samples. |
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Bacterial
traps. These containers are microbial
colonization chambers so that microbes that produce mats on the seafloor
can be sampled. The traps are filled with glass-wool (as a substrate)
and allow microbes to enter but keep other grazing predators out.
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Time-lapse
camera. This camera has been deployed
repeatedly at Marker 33 to document biological colonization at the
site in between the annual site visits with ROPOS. |
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Elevator
mooring. This device is used to transport
samples and equipment from the seafloor to the surface (or visa versa),
without requiring ROPOS to leave the bottom during a dive. |
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NeMO
Net. This
is a state-of-the-art engineering system that allows scientist in
the lab to communicate with instruments on the seafloor. An acoustic
modem links seafloor instruments to a surface buoy and then data is
relayed to shore by satellite. |
