The longest, most challenging
ocean expedition in our Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory’s 25-year
history was a huge success!
Congratulations to the tired but proud crew,
including Terry Kerby, the laboratory’s operations director and chief
pilot, and co-pilots Steve Price and Max Cremer. Thanks, also, to Alex
Malahoff, architect of the multi-legged expedition and director of the
Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory who is serving as CEO of the New Zealand
Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. The expedition is a product
of his 20-year dream. It took five years of planning to use the Pisces
submersibles on the island arcs of the western Pacific. With a remotely-operated
vehicle and the two human-occupied submersibles, the research vessel
Ka`imikai-o-Kanaloa sailed to its homeport in Hawaii after
nearly five months in the South Pacific. The ship traveled more than 10,000
nautical miles. The multi-national collaboration between the U.S., New
Zealand and Germany produced many discoveries, including numerous suspected
new species, new ranges for known species, measurements of the diversity
of marine life, and more data about undersea volcanoes and the rare interface
of life based on sunlight and life based on chemicals. The mission was
research, exploratory and multi-disciplinary, spanning a dozen disciplines
in marine science and ocean engineering.
Scientists spotted a large unidentified crab
the size of a soccer ball and nicknamed it "sumo-crab" because
of its massive body and deliberate movements. On another leg of the mission,
researchers assessing living marine resources in waters of U.S. territories,
including suspected new species, observed what they called a “donut fish,”
a small tadpole-like fish that forms itself into a donut shape and drifts
with the current. Terry Kerby, chief pilot of the Pisces submersible,
reported that going into the Giggenbach Volcano was like descending “into
a shallow pit and discovering an area with pure white slopes of encrusted
sulfur deposits with streams of bubbles pouring out of the bottom. When
I turned off the sub’s lights and looked across the slope, it was like
looking at a snow-covered slope in the light of a full moon through a
champagne glass. The surface light reflected off the streams of bubbles
moving up in the water column and made for a magical scene."
Giggenbach Volcano "...pure white slopes
of encrusted sulfur deposits with streams of bubbles pouring out of the
bottom. When I turned off the sub’s lights and looked across the slope,
it was like looking at a snow-covered slope in the light of a full moon
through a champagne glass."
Just as Giggenbach, many of the volcanoes
explored on this mission had never been explored before. The volcanoes
and seamounts, some quiet and some among the most active on Earth, are
on the southern part of the same large tectonic ocean plate that far to
the north and off the coast of Indonesia moved 65 feet and generated last
year's catastrophic tsunami. Barbara Moore, Director of NOAA’s Undersea
Research Program, called this one of the most successful ocean exploration
voyages in recent years. In addition to our pilots, congratulations to
Barbara, and Steve Hammond, acting director of the NOAA Office of Ocean
Exploration.
http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/05fire/welcome.html
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