Searching for Environments That Could Support Life: Lessons Learned From Six Deep Sea Cruises with the Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Details Searching for Environments That Could Support Life: Lessons Learned From Six Deep Sea Cruises with the Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles Searching for Environments That Could Support Life: Lessons Learned From Six Deep Sea Cruises with the Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles

Dec 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p11d..04y&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P11D-04

Other

[0456] Biogeosciences / Life In Extreme Environments, [0456] Biogeosciences / Life In Extreme Environments

Scientific paper

In the past year, we have used our Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) on six deep sea cruises searching for extreme environments that can support life. Two of these cruises took place on Mid-Ocean Ridge terrain (Mid Cayman Rise, Galapagos Rift), three on active methane seeps (Santa Monica/Santa Barbara Basins, Hydrate Ridge, Haakon-Mosby Mud Volcano), and one took place at the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout. This presentation summarizes how we used the vehicles, their automatic control systems, and their sensor suites in these different environments to identify and quantify chemical fluxes emerging from the seafloor. We also took advantage of complementary data from lowered and towed platforms. Examples will include the following: * ●In the Cayman Trough and the Galapagos Rift, we used in-situ chemical sensing (conductivity, temperature, optical backscatter, and redox potential) to locate hydrothermal sources. * ●In the Galapagos Rift, we also used our 400khz multibeam sonar to locate hydrothermal sites using acoustic backscatter from plumes and by building bathymetric maps of likely hydrothermal structures. * ●In the Santa Monica and Santa Barbara Basins, we used the TETHYS in-situ mass spectrometer to locate active methane seeps and to determine the ratio of biogenic to thermogenic methane through isotopic analysis. We used this information in real-time to alter the vehicle's trajectory and, hence, improve measurements over the most interesting locations. * ●At the site of the Deepwater Horizon blowout, we used Sentry and TETHYS to map a deep hydrocarbon plume from just outside the vessel exclusion zone out to a distance of 35 km. Analysis of oxygen data from an electrode, an optode, the mass spectrometer, and from titration of samples brought to the surface supported estimates of microbial respiration rates. * ●On Hydrate Ridge, we showed that the 400khz multibeam sonar is an effective tool for locating active methane bubble plumes. A sub-bottom profiler in the 4-24 khz range holds potential for characterizing bubble sizes and quantifying fluxes. * ●In September-October 2010 we will be making further evaluation of these combined techniques for the study of gas hydrate destabilization in the Arctic.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Searching for Environments That Could Support Life: Lessons Learned From Six Deep Sea Cruises with the Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Searching for Environments That Could Support Life: Lessons Learned From Six Deep Sea Cruises with the Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Searching for Environments That Could Support Life: Lessons Learned From Six Deep Sea Cruises with the Sentry and Nereus Autonomous Underwater Vehicles will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1494738