Ninth Expedition to Refresh Regional Cabled Array
OOI’s Regional Cabled Array team will be spending the month of August and into September 2023 in the Pacific for its annual Operations and Maintenance Expedition to ensure the cabled component and instrumentation remain operational for another year. The operation is so complex that it will be conducted in four separate legs. For almost six weeks the team aboard the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, operated by the University of Washington, will send the remotely operated vehicle, ROV Jason, operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, to recover and deploy more than 100 instruments as far as 2 miles below the ocean’s surface, all connected to a cable that supplies power and internet connectivity.Live video feeds from the ship make it possible to directly observe parts of the seafloor rarely seen by humans –the most active submarine volcano off the Pacific coast, Axial Seamount, and one of the most extreme environments on Earth – underwater 700°F hot springs teaming with life. Katie Bigham, Deb Kelley, Julie Nelson, Brian Ittig, Wendi Ruef, and Mike Vardaro served as Chief or Co-Chief Scientist for various legs of the expedition. Check back regularly for updates!
Location
The Regional Cabled Array is the first US ocean observatory to span a tectonic plate. It is located in the northeast Pacific providing data from the seafloor and through the water column across the Juan de Fuca plate.
Ship
The R/V Thomas G. Thompson is a state-of-the-art oceangoing research vessel operated by the University of Washington.
Updates
Regular posts about life aboard the ship, work accomplished, and encounters with marine life.
