News and Web Articles generated by HURL work
2014
Jul 02: Searching for History
The July-August 2014 issue of The
Military Engineer reports on the
multi-phase program known as the Hawaiʻi Undersea
Military Munitions Assessment (HUMMA)
currently undertaking the unique challenge of
characterizing a historic deep-water military munitions
disposal site. From its start in 2006 through today,
HUMMA has faced several unusual challenges, including an
extremely large study area that is in perpetual
darkness; complex safety and logistical requirements;
and scarce information about the site history, leaving
few appropriate benchmarks for investigation design and
data evaluation. Margo
Edwards, senior research scientist at Hawaii
Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP)
is HUMMA's principal investigator. Read more about it in
The
Military Engineer. Image courtesy of C. Wollerman
/ HURL.
Apr 21: Charting the seafloor of Papahānaumokuākea MNM
On 11 April 2014, scientists returned from a 36-day
mapping expedition to Papahānaumokuākea Marine National
Monument (PMNM)
in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. PMNM is the
largest protected area in the United
States, encompassing an area greater than all its
national parks combined, yet over half its seafloor has
never been mapped in detail due to the limited
availability of the advanced sonar systems required. The
survey, carried out aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's
(SOI)
272-foot R/V Falkor, mapped over 40,000 square
kilometers (15,445 square miles) of previously unmapped
or poorly mapped areas inside the Monument. This
represents approximately 11 percent of the total area of
PMNM. Read more about it and watch the video at KITV4;
in the UH
Mānoa News, in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (subscription required), and Kaunānā.
Image courtesy of C. Kelly / HURL.
Mar 31: Scientists to investigate munitions at sea
Scientists are revisiting previously-found munitions
dumped at sea to determine whether the materials still
pose a threat to human health and the environment. In
2007, UH was awarded money to conduct the Hawaii
Undersea Military Munitions Assessment (HUMMA)
in response to KHON2's "Buried at Sea" series, which
uncovered the dumping of thousands of military munitions
decades ago just off the Waianae coast. "Specifically,
we're looking for mustard agent,"" said HIGP
researcher and CIMES
director Margo
Edwards. "The message that I want to get out is
the fact that we are detecting mustard in the sediments
about two meters around these munitions."" Read more
about and watch the video at KITV4,
Hawaii
News Now, and KHON2;
read more about it in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Kaunānā,
and KHON2.
Image courtesy of KHON2.
Feb 12: Human-manned subs being phased out - at what
cost...?
An article in the Honolulu
Civil Beat profiles Terry
Kerby, Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
chief pilot and director of submarine operations, and
reviews the extraordinary history of HURL's submersible
program. HURL expeditions have included the discovery of
the historic World War II Japanese midget submarine,
groundbreaking research on the new Hawaiian island that
is growing east of the Big Island, and played a key role
in breakthrough findings on monk seal habitats that have
facilitated conservation efforts, to name but a few. But
now, says John
Wiltshire, the lab's director, the program is in
danger of shutting down. Read more about it the Honolulu
Civil Beat. Image courtesy of PF Bentley / Civil
Beat; click on it to go to the full version.
Jan 08: HURL enables discovery of long-term ecosystem
shift
The Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
has enabled scientists to determine that a long-term
shift in nitrogen content in the Pacific Ocean has
occurred as a result of climate change. Researchers from
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL)
and the University of California - Santa Cruz (UCSC)
analyzed deep-sea corals gathered near the Hawaiian
Islands using the HURL Pisces
V, submersible. They observed overall
nitrogen fixation in the North Pacific Ocean has
increased by about 20 percent since the mid 1800s and
this long-term change appears to be continuing today,
according to a study published recently in the journal,
Nature.
Read more about it in the UH
Mānoa News, Kaunānā,
and Raising
Islands, and Asian
American Press. Image, which was used on the cover
of Nature, courtesy of M. Cremer / HURL.
Jan 08: Under the surface with HURL
Not too many people know their office equipment as well
as Terry
Kerby knows his. He spends five months every year
taking his apart and then putting it back together,
piece by piece. Then again, not too many people rely on
their gear to survive at more than 6,000 feet below the
ocean's surface. Kerby is chief pilot at the Hawaiʻi
Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL),
commanding its two submersible vehicles, the Pisces
IV and the Pisces
V, to explore the depths of the ocean. It's
a position that gives him "a big rush, like it's the
first time" every time he dives, yet the danger
involved is enough to generate chills as well. Read more
about it in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (subscription required). Image
courtesy of Craig T. Kojima /
ckojima@staradvertiser.com.
2013
Dec 03: HURL finds WWII aircraft-carrying submarine
off Oʻahu
A World War II-era Imperial Japanese Navy
mega-submarine, the I-400, lost since 1946 when it was
intentionally scuttled by U.S. forces after its capture,
has been discovered in more than 2,300 feet of water off
the southwest coast of Oʻahu. The discovery resolves a
decades-old Cold War mystery of just where the lost
submarine lay. The new discovery of the I-400 was led by
HURL
operations director and chief submarine pilot Terry
Kerby. Since 1992, HURL has used its manned
submersibles Pisces
IV and Pisces
V to hunt for submarines and other
submerged cultural resources as part of the NOAA
maritime heritage research effort. Read more about it
and watch the videos at UH
System News, the New
York Times, CNN,
the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (subscription required), and HNGN;
read more about it at National
Geographic, Honolulu
Civil Beat, and WPTV
News.
In
part two of the two-part episode of UnderH2O
about the submersible operation at the Hawaiʻi Undersea
Research Lab (HURL),
we observe the launch and recovery of the Pisces
V submersible from the recently-restored LRT
(Launch, Recovery, and Transport) Platform - a marvel of
undersea technology.
In part one of a two-episode by UnderH2O,
we look at the submersible operation at the Hawaiʻi
Undersea Research Lab (HURL),
and meet Terry Kerby, a legend of the
underwater world. Terry has been piloting submarines for
over 30 years. Part two will show the launch and
recovery of the Pisces
V submersible from the recently-restored LRT
(Launch, Recovery, and Transport) Platform. Also, read
more about it in the
Huffington Post.
September 05 2013: Undersea canyons nourish isles'
deep-water life
Submarine canyons play an important role in maintaining
high levels of biodiversity of small invertebrates in
the seafloor sediments of the main and northwestern
Hawaiian Islands, according to research recently
published in the
Deep Sea Research Part II. "Canyons may be
particularly important in the Hawaiian islands, in part
because they supply organic matter to the typically
food-limited deep sea," said lead author Oceanography
PhD student Fabio
C. De Leo. De Leo and colleagues, including
professor
Craig Smith, the study's principal investigator,
conducted 34 dives into six canyons and their nearby
slopes using HURL's
Pisces submersibles.
Read more about it at in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (subscription required), Science
Codex, and the UH
System News.
Late Senator Inouye worked with Senator Cochrane to
put HURL in their proposed FY13 budget
When our funding was eliminated in 2012, the late
Senator Inouye worked to draft language to put us back
in the budget. Congress still hasn't voted on a budget
for FY13, leaving us in limbo. This
flyer highlight's Inouye's proposed language and
outlines what is at stake if we don't find funding soon.
February 19th, 2013 - Going Deep - Diving into
Deep-Sea Research in Hawaiʻi
Rachel Orange & Dr John Wiltshire represented HURL
in a conversation about Deep-Sea Research on the "All
Things Marine" radio show sponsored by COSEE
Island Earth and hosted by Carlie Wiener "the marine
science gal", and program manager for COSEE Island
Earth. Download
the Podcast (MP3, 41.95 MB)
Rachel Orange, Dr. John Wiltshire, Dr.
Jeff Drazen, and Anela Choy join the All
Things Marine radio show to talk about
deep-sea research.
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2012
Mustard Bombs Off Pearl Harbor Investigated for
Potential Health Hazards
Thousands of unexploded chemical weapons are sitting on
the ocean floor about five miles off of Oʻahu's famed
southern beaches. Research shows that the military
dumped about 16,000 bombs filled with mustard agent,
each weighing 100 pounds, off the coast of Pearl Harbor
during World War II. At the time, it was a common method
of disposal. Now, decades later, with $3 million in
funding from the U.S. Army, scientists at the University
of Hawaiʻi are investigating whether these weapons could
be posing a risk to human health or the marine
ecosystem. Read
more here.
Deep-Sea Animal ID guide available online.
With over 30 years of diving to the deep sea in manned
submersibles, scientists at the Hawaiʻi Undersea
Research Laboratory have seen a plethora of organisms
most people will never have a chance to see. As one of
the few institutions that creates detailed logs of all
video produced with the submersibles, HURL has created
and built up a knowledge base that is featured in a
photo-guide of all the organisms one might encounter in
the deep-sea around Hawaiʻi. Until recently, that guide
was only available to scientists preparing for upcoming
dives. Now scientists around the world, as well as the
general public, can access HURL's deepwater animal
photo-guide online. Read
the press release here (pdf). KITV
report here. Raising
Islands report here.
Petition to re-instate HURL Funding
A petition was launched to demonstrate public support
for HURL's work. Read more
here.
Funding Being HURLed Away
Science Director, John R. Smith, asks scientists that
have utilized HURL assets for help generating letters of
support to the U.S. Congress, which has the power to
re-instating funding for deep-sea research. Read
the letter here.
Land-Ocean Connections Discovered Off Molokaʻi
Scientists from SOEST and colleagues from other
institutions recently discovered that land-based plant
material and coastal macroalgae indirectly support the
increased abundances of bottom fish in submarine
canyons, like those off the north shore of the island of
Molokaʻi. Oceanography PhD candidate Fabio
De Leo, lead author of the
report, his PhD advisor Craig
Smith, and their colleagues used manned
submersibles operated by the Hawaii Undersea Research
Laboratory (HURL)
to perform numerous video transects in two submarine
canyons off Molokaʻi at depths ranging from 350 to 1,050
m (~1,000 to ~3,000 ft).
Read more about it in Molokai
Dispatch, Science
Daily, Science
Codex, and Maui
Now. You can also download the press
release (PDF).
Sea Hunt
Story
by Paul Wood in Hana Hou Magazine, Maritime
archaeologist Hans Van Tilburg estimates there are
some two thousand wrecks in Hawaiian waters -- and
he'd like to explore every one of them. (pdf)
2011
Oct 10: UH submariners locate wrecks of three Navy
vessels
For more than a decade, the deep-diving crews of the
Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
have multitasked required annual test dives in their Pisces
submersibles with searches for notable shipwrecks off
the coast of Oʻahu. "There are a lot of targets we've
spotted by sonar that we'd like to get to one day," said
pilot Terry Kerby, "But there isn't
enough time, so we look when we can." In September, they
discovered three wrecks off the South Shore, two of
which were craft haunted by terrible Navy disasters.
Read more about it at Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (subscription only) and The
Republic. Image courtesy of HURL; click on it to
see the full version. Honolulu
Star-Advertiser Photo Gallery
Sep 28: Stone is first Native Hawaiian to visit Lōʻihi
Seamount
Native Hawaiian practitioner Tom Pohaku Stone
is beaming from his trip in HURL's
Pisces IV submersible to visit Lō'ihi
Seamount at a depth of almost 1800 meters.The
well-respected administrator of Kanalu,
a non-profit focusing on Hawaiian cultural education,
received a call from National Geographic asking if he'd
join the latest mission to the active volcano off
Hawaiʻi Island. "Being the first Hawaiian going down,
it's amazing to see the birth of the new island that
tutu Pele is working on," said Stone.
Read more about it and see video at KHON2.
Maldonado, M., L. Navarro, A. Grasa, A. Gonzalez, and
I. Vaquerizo (2011). Silicon uptake by sponges: a twist
to understanding nutrient cycling on continental
margins. Scientific Reports, doi:10.1038/srep00030 http://www.nature.com/srep/2011/110704/srep00030/full/srep00030.html
Sandin, Stuart (2010). Farewell to Reefs, Salt Ponds
and Milkfish. Scientist at Work, New York Times, Nov.
30, 2010. http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/author/stuart-sandin/
Apr 06: Students virtually participate in 1000th
Pisces dive
Nearly 500 students from more than 35 classrooms
"virtually" accompanied researchers from the Hawaiʻi
Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
on the 1,000th dive by one of the lab's twin Pisces
manned-submersibles. The students participating in Creep
into the Deep: Virtual Research Mission
to the Deep-sea communicated with scientists
aboard the Pisces V submersible from
classrooms around the country via email updates, photos,
and video.
Read more about it at MSNBC.com,
Our
Amazing Planet, and NOAA
News.
2010
Jul 27: Dumped munitions: no adverse effects... for now
Hawaiʻi Institute of Geophysics and Planetology (HIGP)
researcher Margo
Edwards lead a three-year investigation of
military chemical weapons dumped during and after World
War II at a deep-water site five miles south of Pearl
Harbor; her team reports that the dumped munitions "do
not indicate any adverse impacts on ecological health"
right now, but continued monitoring is warranted. Two
Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
submersibles were used to take water and sediment
samples that were analyzed for chemical agents and other
hazards.
Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser here
(added 08-23-10) and here,
KITV.com,
and in the SOEST
press release (PDF). Image courtesy of HUMMA
and HURL.
Jun 21: Students focus on science of undersea
volcanoes
The Marine Advanced Technology Education (MATE)
Center's ROV
competition will be held at University of Hawaiʻi
at Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, from June 24 to
26, 2010. The theme of the competition is "undersea
volcanoes and the role that underwater robots, known as
remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), play in their science
and exploration." The Hawaiʻi Undersea Research
Laboratory (HURL)
helped MATE to develop this year's mission scenarios
about the science and exploration of Loʻihi. UPDATE:
Congratulations to this year's winners: the
team from Hanalani School in Mililani!
View the video at Big
Island Video News.com; read more about it at Hawaiʻi
24/7, AScribe,
and in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser (link revised 07-12-10).
Apr 09: Undersea canyons teeming with life
In an article in the journal Marine
Ecology, Hawaiʻi Pacific University (HPU)
associate professor Eric
Vetter, UH Mānoa Oceanography (OCE)
professor Craig
Smith, and UH PhD candidate
Fabio De Leo describe undersea canyons a mile to
three miles offshore surrounding Hawaiʻi as possible
"hot spots of biological diversity" that may serve as
nurseries to replenish less abundant areas. "Quite a few
species are potentially new to science and many may well
be endemic to canyons,"" Smith said.
Read more about it in the Honolulu
Advertiser, the Honolulu
Star-Bulletin, News@UH,
and redOrbit.
01/05/10 -- HURL Team Featured in "Killer
Subs in Pearl Harbor" on PBS NOVA
2009
Dec 16: "Bizarre" sponges, corals found on deep sea
floor
During recent mile-deep submersible dives in the Papahānaumokuākea
Marine National Monument, Hawaiʻi Undersea Research
Laboratory (HURL)
scientists filmed many previously unknown corals and
sponges - some "like something out of Dr Suess"-for the
first time in high-definition video. The HD video is so
good they expect to be able to identify some animals
without having to collect specimens.
Read more about it in the Honolulu
Advertiser.
Dec 14: Sea yields clues to '41 attack
New evidence discovered by the Hawaiʻi Undersea
Research Laboratory (HURL)
indicating that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor
effectively from under water, as well as from the air,
was announced by the "NOVA"
television series on the anniversary of the 07 December
1941 attack that drew the United States into World War
II.
Read more about it at Honolulu
Star-Bulletin. Videos at KHON2.com,
Honolulu
Advertiser, and Hawaii
News Now.
Nov 12: Top-secret WWII Japanese combat subs
discovered
Two World War II Japanese submarines, designed with
revolutionary technology to attack the U.S. mainland,
have been discovered off the Hawaiian coast of Oʻahu, it
was announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA),
the Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL),
and the National Geographic Channel (NGC).
The wreckage will be seen for the first time in "Hunt
for the Samurai Subs," premiering Tuesday 17 November
2009 on NGC (in high definition).
Read more about it in the New
York Times, the Honolulu
Star-Bulletin, the Honolulu
Advertiser, and the SOEST
Press Release. HURL Team Featured in
"Hunt for Samurai Subs" on National Geographic's
Expedition Week
Sep 04: He has one of the coolest jobs in Hawaiʻi
Terry Kerby is the chief pilot for the
Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory.
He leads expeditions in HURL's submersibles to research
areas a mile and more beneath the sea, investigating
sites as diverse as active undersea volcanoes such as
Loʻihi, south of the Big Island, sunken ships, and lost
surplus WWII weapons. "After 30 years of piloting," says
Kerby, "it's the same rush as I had doing it for the
first time."
Read more about it at Honolulu
Magazine.
Aug 13: HURL gets $2.8 million in NOAA funding
U.S. Senators
Daniel K. Akaka and Daniel
K. Inouye announced today that the Hawaiʻi
Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
has been awarded $2,881,455 for Fiscal Year 2009 by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
"The valuable information gained can help us plan for
climate change and improve management and restoration of
vital ocean resources," Akaka said. "[HURL] is vital to
the study and understanding of deep ocean processes,"
Inouye said.
Read more about it in the Honolulu
Advertiser.
Wiltshire, J. (2009). Felipe Arzayus (ed.) Exploring
the South Pacific: Witnessing the birth of an undersea
mountain. NOAA 200th Anniversary Celebration Article:
http://dusk.geo.orst.edu/djl/samoa/hurl/noaa_celebration_HURL.pdf
Wiltshire, J. (2009). Felipe Arzayus (ed.) Witnessing
the birth of an undersea mountain... and other exciting
discoveries! NOAA Spotlight Feature Article:
http://www.research.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/spot_southpacific.html
Mar 23: Corals in deep water off Hawaiʻi over 4200
years old
John Smith, Science Director of the
Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
discusses findings from deep-sea dives near Oʻahu and
the Big Island in 2004. Researchers at Lawrence
Livermore, Stanford, and UC Santa Cruz recently
determined that corals of the species Leiopathes
collected by HURL submersibles
are over 4,200 years old, making them some of the oldest
living organisms on earth.
Read about it and watch the video at KHON2;
read more about it in VOA
News, Physorg.com,
Xinhua
and the Houston
Chronicle.
Mar 13: Submersibles collect samples near munitions
Two Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
submersibles have been collecting water and sediment
samples near disposed WWII munitions dumped south of
Pearl Harbor. "I think it's important for the safety of
the people of the state of Hawaiʻi," said Dr. Margo
Edwards, Hawaiʻi Mapping Research Group (HMRG)
director and principal investigator of the project. "I
mean, we'd like to know that our water is safe, that our
food is safe to eat, and that's what we're trying to
address with this project."
See a video about the project at KGMB9.com
and HonoluluAdvertiser.com.
Read more about it in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin hereand
here,
at MSNBC,
and KHNL
NBC 8. Image courtesy of HURL / Honolulu
Advertiser; click on it to see the full version. Update!
More findings are reported in the Honolulu
Advertiser.
03/12/09 -- HURL Researchers featured on National
Geographic's "Drain the Ocean"
Mar 05 : New species, genera, of bamboo coral
identified
Working among the islands of Papahānaumokuākea
Marine National Monument, scientists using a HURL
submersible research vessel surveyed deep-sea corals
thousands of feet below the ocean surface. Discoveries
include seven new species of bamboo coral identified so
far. "The potential for more discoveries is high, but
these deep-sea corals are not protected everywhere as
they are here, and can easily be destroyed,"" said Oceanography
associate professor Christopher
Kelley.
See a video about the project at KGMB9.com.
Read more about it NOAA’s
news page, the Honolulu
Advertiser (link revised 03-30-09) and SF
Gate.
Feb 25: Accessing 1944 offshore chemical weapons dump
Two Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory (HURL)
submersibles, Pisces
IV and Pisces
V, will spend 15 days beginning Monday 02
March 2009 filming and taking water and sediment samples
south of Pearl Harbor as part of an Army project to
determine the risks associated with thousands of M47-A2
bombs, containing almost 600 tons of mustard gas, dumped
off the south shore of the island of Oʻahu in 1944.
Between 1932 and 1944, bombs containing several kinds of
chemical weapons were discarded.
Read more about it in Honolulu
Star-Bulletin and at MSNBC.com.
Jan 09 -- Large
6-gill shark off of Molokai gets attention on YouTube
2008
03/05/08 -- Featured
in "Best of Honolulu" issue of Honolulu Magazine
2005
08/10/05 -- The Hawaiʻi Undersea Research Laboratory
and the crew of the R/V Kaʻimikai-O-Kanaloa return from
a highly successful deep-diving
cruise in the South Pacific exploring submarine
volcanoes. During this multi-national, five-month
cruise, they traveled 10,000 nautical miles and made
numerous discoveries in the fields of marine biology and
geophysics.
Read more about it in the NOAA
news article and the Honolulu
Star Bulletin
and the Message from the
Under Secretary
Kahng, S.E. (2005). Unwelcome invaders. Alien soft
coral invades Hawaiʻi coral reef community. University of
Hawaiʻi Sea Grant Makai newsletter
Kahng, S.E. (2005). A silent invasion threatens to
overrun pristine black coral beds and alter Hawaiʻi's
deep reef community. NOAA National Centers for Coastal
Ocean Science* website
Kelley, C. and T. Kerby (2005). Recent Encounters with
Great White Sharks in Hawaiian Waters. NOAA Research,
Archive of Spotlight Feature Articles, 2005.
03/18/05 -- KOK loaded with Pisces IV & V embarks
on 5-month expedition to Am. Samoa and New Zealand. See
Star Bulletin.
03/17/05 -- During test dives HURL finds largest diesel
submarine ever operated. See
Star Bulletin article.
Eakins, B.W., J.E. Robinson, T. Kanamatsu, J. Naka,
J.R. Smith, E. Takahashi, and D.A. Clague. Hawaii's
volcanoes revealed: U.S. Geological Survey Geologic
Investigations Series I-2809, (2003) [URL http://geopubs.wr.usgs.gov/i-map/i2809].
2002
12/08/02 -- HURL's discovery of a Japanese
mini submarine was featured on War
Stories with Oliver North on Fox News
11/12/02 -- HURL researchers collected a beautiful
living soft coral (Anthomastus sp.) for the Waikiki
Aquarium
10/17/02 -- Chris Kelley, John Smith, and Rachel
Shackelford represented HURL on KidScience's
Journey to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
09/28/02 -- HURL discovers Japanese
mini submarine that was sunk on Dec. 7, 1941
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