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How Deep Is the Ocean?
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By KURT LOFT The Tampa Tribune
Published: Jul 3, 2006
TAMPA - Run silent, run deep.
That's the buzz phrase at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where researchers work on the cutting edge of marine exploration. One of their latest projects will explore the deepest ravine on the planet: the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. For the first time in more than 45 years, a craft will descend seven miles down to the bottom of this eerie world, where pressures are a thousand times greater than on land.
People won't be at risk, though. The workhorse is a new submersible called the Nereus, named after the Greek god with a human torso and tail of a fish. Now under construction at the Massachusetts facility, the $5 million remotely operated vehicle can do science at 36,000 feet - more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
"It will enable, for the first time, routine scientific research in the deepest parts of the ocean, a depth we currently cannot reach," says Richard Pittenger, vice president of marine operations at Woods Hole.
The craft opens a door to another world for oceanographers, he says, and "will help answer many questions about the deep sea."
The sub augments work done by Wood Hole's most famous submarine, Alvin, commissioned in 1964. However, Nereus can go deeper, and it gives scientists a set of remote eyes and fingers in areas considered off limits and virtually unexplored. Scientists want to learn more about those deep ocean trenches as they reveal clues about colliding tectonic plates that spawn earthquakes.
Nereus will collect marine life samples, snap digital photographs and video, and perform high-resolution mapping of seafloor and trench walls. The battery-powered vehicle is designed to be flexible, running for 36 hours in two modes: as an autonomous, free-swimming vehicle for wide area surveys and as a tethered craft for close-up sampling.
Although a robot, Nereus in many ways is an extension of the bathyscaphe Trieste, which made history on Jan. 23, 1960. Armed with a considerable amount of courage, explorer and engineer Jacques Piccard and two assistants descended into the Marianna Trench to 35,800 feet, testing the craft's mettle as pressures hit 15,750 pounds per square inch.
In the mid-1980s, the Japanese unmanned vehicle Kaiko mapped the bottom of the trench but did not go below 30,000 feet. It was later lost. With the exception of Nereus, no vehicles exist that can explore the ocean's deepest regions.
How Deep Is the Ocean?
Skip directly to the full story.
By KURT LOFT The Tampa Tribune
Published: Jul 3, 2006
TAMPA - Run silent, run deep.
That's the buzz phrase at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where researchers work on the cutting edge of marine exploration. One of their latest projects will explore the deepest ravine on the planet: the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. For the first time in more than 45 years, a craft will descend seven miles down to the bottom of this eerie world, where pressures are a thousand times greater than on land.
People won't be at risk, though. The workhorse is a new submersible called the Nereus, named after the Greek god with a human torso and tail of a fish. Now under construction at the Massachusetts facility, the $5 million remotely operated vehicle can do science at 36,000 feet - more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
"It will enable, for the first time, routine scientific research in the deepest parts of the ocean, a depth we currently cannot reach," says Richard Pittenger, vice president of marine operations at Woods Hole.
The craft opens a door to another world for oceanographers, he says, and "will help answer many questions about the deep sea."
The sub augments work done by Wood Hole's most famous submarine, Alvin, commissioned in 1964. However, Nereus can go deeper, and it gives scientists a set of remote eyes and fingers in areas considered off limits and virtually unexplored. Scientists want to learn more about those deep ocean trenches as they reveal clues about colliding tectonic plates that spawn earthquakes.
Nereus will collect marine life samples, snap digital photographs and video, and perform high-resolution mapping of seafloor and trench walls. The battery-powered vehicle is designed to be flexible, running for 36 hours in two modes: as an autonomous, free-swimming vehicle for wide area surveys and as a tethered craft for close-up sampling.
Although a robot, Nereus in many ways is an extension of the bathyscaphe Trieste, which made history on Jan. 23, 1960. Armed with a considerable amount of courage, explorer and engineer Jacques Piccard and two assistants descended into the Marianna Trench to 35,800 feet, testing the craft's mettle as pressures hit 15,750 pounds per square inch.
In the mid-1980s, the Japanese unmanned vehicle Kaiko mapped the bottom of the trench but did not go below 30,000 feet. It was later lost. With the exception of Nereus, no vehicles exist that can explore the ocean's deepest regions.
my girl on the right 
