NOAA News NOAA Home Page

LANDLUBBERS CAN WATCH SCIENTISTS ABOARD NOAA'S AQUARIUS LIVE AND WORK BENEATH THE OCEAN

August 12, 1999 — It is unlikely that a scientist can get a pizza delivered to NOAA's underwater laboratory Aquarius. A researcher also just cannot quickly step out for a breath of fresh air. Daily delivery of a newspaper? Forget it. (Click here for larger photo view.)

But those are small prices to pay to the scientists who have the chance to live and work for up to 10 days aboard Aquarius.

The current team will stay underwater until August 18. Like most of the missions this year, the team is studying the coral reefs where Aquarius is located 63 feet below the surface on Conch reef, seven miles from Key Largo, Florida.

Aboard (or below) are Dr. Thomas Cronin of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, Dr. Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia, Dr. Nadav Shashar of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass., and Dr. Roy Caldwell of the University of California at Berkeley. Two technicians from the National Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, Craig Cooper and Mike Hutchens, are also aboard to operate life support equipment and monitor dive operations.

Aquarius has one mission per month up until Thanksgiving. July's mission, the second of the 1999 season, was part of a joint effort between NOAA and the Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC).

"We welcomed this opportunity to work with our Japanese colleagues," said Dr. Barbara Moore, Director of NOAA's National Undersea Research Program. "Just as they have shared their unique undersea technology with us through the world's deepest diving submarine, we are pleased that we could share our unique system with them."

While the mission was a scientific one, it was also a bit of a test drive for the Japanese scientists. While Aquarius now is the only such underwater laboratory where scientists can live and work for extended periods, it may soon be joined by a similar habitat in Japan.

"There is also Japanese interest in building a new underwater habitat, and nothing beats first-hand experience," said Dr Steven Miller, Director of the National Undersea Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, which administers and operates the Aquarius program.

While those of us topside stay dry, we can still share in the experience via cameras that provide live pictures of life inside and outside the underwater laboratory and daily journals posted on the Aquarius Web site: http://www.uncwil.edu/nurc/aquarius

Those aboard are also encouraged to contribute to the on-line expedition journals to share their thoughts and observations about living and working under water.

"As I finish writing this, the bunk room I sit in crackles and snaps like the flames of an open fire, our introduction to a chorus of shrimp and other noisy invertebrates which will provide our evening entertainment. Porthole windows are thick with plankton attracted to our night lights, a bonanza for passing fish that scoop up an unending banquet," wrote Ken Mallory in his first day's journal entry. Mallory, the editor-in-chief of the New England Aquarium, was on the July mission.

The missions scheduled for the rest of the season are September 13-22, October 11- 20, and November 8-17.

 

-end-