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HURL's Top 10 Accomplishments over the Past 30 Years
- Initiating the HURL science dive program
on July 14, 1981 when Makaliʻi made the
first dive into the Oak Crater in Eniwetak Atoll.
This project included scientists from the Defense
Nuclear Agency, Lawrence Livermore Labs, and the Air
Force Weapons Agency to conduct studies in the crater
made by the first hydrogen bomb ever tested. HURL
conducted three months of diving operations at
Eniwetak Atoll with additional scientists from the
Bishop Museum, the University of Hawaiʻi, MPRL, the
West Indies Lab, University of California, the
Smithsonian, and others. The Eniwetak expedition
launched HURL as a science diving program.
- Discovering the Japanese midget submarine
(2002) which was identified, fired upon, and sunk by
the destroyer USS Ward trying to enter Pearl
Harbor just prior to the aerial attack on Dec 7,
1941. It represents the first shot of the entry of
the United States into WWII and has been the subject
of several full length documentaries. HURL has worked
with various NOAA offices and partner agencies
including the National Marine Sanctuaries Program and
the National Park Service to examine its condition,
carry out corrosion testing, and document it with the
intent of preserving this valuable maritime heritage
site for posterity.
- Facilitating the long term study of Loʻihi
submarine volcano for nearly 25 years,
documenting the growth of a new Hawaiian island
including its explosive history, investigating the
tsunami risk from collapse events as in 1996, and
analyzing its unique and extreme ecosystems. Such
research has resulted in the first full genome
characterization of a deep sea hydrothermal vent
organism - Idiomarina loihiensis, which is a
deep sea living gamma-proteobacterium. HURL's latest
achievement is the first two-sub dive series inside
the active Pele's Pit volcanic summit crater (2011)
for a National Geographic documentary shot with 3D HD
technology.
- Supporting the research of scientists from Stanford
University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
who found that deep sea corals are some of
the oldest living organisms on Earth (2003-2007). Their innovative approach in applying
radiocarbon dating techniques to branches from coral
trees have shown gold corals (Gerardia sp) to
be 2742 yrs old and deep water black corals (Leiopathes
sp.) to be 4265 yrs old, projected to be up to
10,000 yrs old for the latter when the diameter of the
tree base is considered. Benefits and importance of
these results include a moratorium on the commercial
harvesting on such corals in Hawaiʻi; and this long
temporal history allows their use as proxies of
climate change.
- Continuing a long term presence in, and study of,
the pristine ecosystems of the Papahānaumokuākea
Marine National Monument in the Northwestern
Hawaiian Islands, which is both the single
largest conservation area under U.S. jurisdiction and
one of the largest marine protected areas in the
world. While a fair bit of work has been devoted to
the shallow water ecosystems immediately surrounding
the islands and atolls, relatively little effort has
been focused on the flanks, banks, seamounts, and
ridges below 100 meters, which makes up 98% of the
protected area. Examples of HURL's service and
stewardship in this deep water realm include: a)
first filming of endangered Hawaiian Monk Seals at
nearly 500 m depth in gold coral (Gerardia sp)
beds, suggesting that the beds may provide critical
Monk Seal foraging habitat (2003), b) discovery of an
estimated 80+ new species of corals and sponges there,
many of which are still being analyzed (2001-2009),
and c) extensive contribution to the multibeam mapping
effort of the monument (2000-2011).
- Sporting an extended history of technical
innovation and operational leadership in support of
scientific research and resource management goals.
Examples include: a) development of the methodology
for, and implementation of, joint technical 'wet'
rebreather diver and submersible operations (2011) in
support of a major multi-year mesophotic coral
research project (2007-2011) sponsored by the NOAA
Deep Coral Reef Ecosystems Studies (CSCOR) and the
Coral Reef Conservation Program, b) first deployment
of the Deep Ocean Mass Spectrometer (DOMS), a quantum
leap for in situ high resolution chemical
analysis (2011), and c) development of the submergible
Launch, Recovery and Transport (LRT)
platforms to deploy HURL's submersibles in higher sea
states with larger instrument packages (early 1980's-1993,
presently being brought back online).
- Committing to public outreach and education.
Examples: a) The Hexanchus six-gilled
shark video from a north Molokai submarine canyon dive
is now NOAA's top YouTube clip at 1.3
million views and climbing (2006), and b) in April
2011, nearly 500 students from 35 K-8 classrooms
across the country "virtually" accompanied researchers
from the University of Hawaii, Bishop Museum, and
NOAA's Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL) on
the 1,000th dive by one of the lab's twin Pisces
manned-submersibles. Similar programs following along
with HURL cruises in 2009 and 2010 have added another
1350 K-12 students.
- Providing the "Biggest Bang for the Buck":
Operating two manned submersibles with a crew of
five specialists at close to 100% success rate for
over ten years is unique in the industry.
Adding two more personnel for ROV operations and
another for multibeam mapping rounds out the 24/7
package of capabilities that HURL offers. Other
over-the-side operations (e.g., CTD rosettes,
fish traps, drop cameras) are also possible from the
support ship R/V Kaʻimiaki-o-Kanaloa
on these cruises. Since 1981, HURL sponsored
researchers have spent nearly 9,000 hours underwater
around the Pacific.
- Undertaking the most ambitious cruise ever organized
in the 30-year history of HURL in the Central and
Southwestern Pacific region over five months in 2005,
involving 58 scientists from four countries and 12
universities and research institutes. The
14,500 nm routing of this expedition took the HURL
program from Honolulu to American Samoa and from
there proceeded to the Tonga-Kermadec arc on the way
to New Zealand. The return trip passed
through the U.S. Line Islands with dives in these
remote island areas which have since become marine
national monuments. In all, eight separate cruise
legs covered 21 different study sites with 78
successful Pisces submersible and ROV dives
completed, along with over-the-side instrument
deployments, mooring recoveries, and multibeam
bathymetric surveys. Funding for this modern day
"Lewis and Clark" expedition of the deep sea included
awards from NURP, NIUST, and OE along with several
international partners.
- Extracting useful biological data from all
dive video in-house regardless of the dive's purpose
and generating products derived from this activity
such as HURL's biological database and HURL's
deepwater animal photo-gallery and photo
identification guide. HURL is one of
only two deepwater submergence facilities in the world
that have had a long term commitment to routinely
extracting biological and substrate data from their
dive video archives.
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