Wind Speed: 28-30 knots; 15° Celsius (59° Fahrenheit) Teacher
at Sea: View Science Summary - Robert Embley, Chief Scientist |
NeMO NET is deployed While we waited for the weather to calm down, the Chief Scientist made the tough decision regarding the work we could safely undertake in the mean time. Despite the rough seas, we were able to retrieve and deploy a few moorings that will give us information about the water, temperature, and currents in the area where they are positioned. We were also able to deploy a very important piece of equipment known as the NeMO NET buoy. It weighs 4.2 tons, is 3 meters tall, 3 meters in diameter and houses two satellite links and two acoustic modems. An acoustic modem is like the modem on your computer, but it transfers information with sound instead of electricity. The anchor that holds the buoy in place consists of eight railroad wheels, weighing 6,800 pounds all together. What a way to recycle! This giant piece of equipment took up the entire starboard aft quarter of the fantail, and was quite a handful for the crew to deploy, especially in these swells. It required at least four deck hands to hold tag lines to steady the buoy before the crane operator was able to bring it up and over the side of the ship for deployment. The deployment of this piece of equipment is so important because it serves as the first interactive relay station between shore and the seafloor where instruments had been positioned on the bottom by ROPOS. Through NeMO NET, scientists can use their computers on shore to remotely make requests for water samples and information (such as temperature and pressure changes) from two of the RAS (Remote Access Sampler) instruments and one BPR (Bottom Pressure Recorder). The computerized request travels via satellite to the NeMO NET buoy and then is sent down to the equipment on the seafloor via the acoustic modems. The information gathered through NeMO NET will be posted as a link on the NeMO website so that scientists can interpret the data as it comes back to shore.
A special feature of NeMO NET is that it also provides scientists the opportunity to monitor and react to Axial Volcano in "real-time". Back at the marine lab, scientists can detect earthquakes by analyzing data that is shared with them by the US Navy's Sound Surveillance System called SOSUS. For this group of scientists, being able to listen to events on the seafloor is especially important because they can triangulate to the sound, find the source of it and without even launching a ship they can react from shore. For example, if they hear through SOSUS that an event is occurring, they can send a message to the RAS or the BPR to collect samples during the event. How exciting! Last night, Dr. David Butterfield informed me that the first attempt to communicate with the RAS and the BPR through the newly installed buoy was a success. His group was able to make the first remote request for RAS to take a water sample - hooray! |
||||||||||
Student's
Question of the Day:
Visitors
at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport Oregon ask, "What Before
we can obtain any results from the pressure sensor data collected at This brings
to a close our expedition to Axial Volcano and NeMO for this |
||||||||||
NeMO 2002 |About NeMO | Expedition | NeMO Net 2002 | Explorer | Dive! | Education |
Privacy Notice | Disclaimer | nemo.webmaster@noaa.gov |