To mine the discoveries waiting at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, a hybrid remotely operated vehicle is needed, according to Dr. Jeff Drazen, ecologist and co-chief scientist of a recent expedition over the Marianas Trench last November and December.<\/p>\n
During the research, scientists deployed landers, which are platforms that hold sampling equipment like cameras, baited trap, metal grabs, or cores, to study the trench.<\/p>\n
There were 92 deployments of these landers, according to Drazen, but to fully explore the trench, scientists would need a hybrid remotely operated vehicle, according to him.<\/p>\n
He indicated that no such equipment currently exists. He said an ROV could be operated in real time through a fiber optic cable connected to a ship.<\/p>\n
The United States\u2019 only HROV, Nereus, was lost in an expedition this year down in the Kermadec Trench north of New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Drazen was aboard that expedition, and said Nereus died on a dive at 10,000 meters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe flotation imploded, and turned it into a piece of rubble on the seafloor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the Nereus went kaput, it basically kneecapped us. It kneecapped the Unites States\u2019 ability to explore the deepest part of the ocean. We have landers and they work great but to actually explore and go around\u2026 to take that animal off that rock, that kind of interactive study was gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Schmidt Ocean Institute is currently constructing a more advanced ROV for use by the R\/V Falkor, the vessel used in Drazen\u2019s recent Marianas Trench expedition. In contrast to Nereus, the new vehicle will be optimized for remotely operated configurations, according to SOI\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
It will be equipped with two manipulator arms that will allow an operator to hold a fixed object like a rock, while also using the other arm to collect a sample, among other upgrades, according to the website.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very likely we\u2019re going to be on Guam or Saipan in the next couple of year and hopefully this time with a vehicle,\u201d Drazen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To mine the discoveries waiting at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, a hybrid remotely…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":188805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[51,165,44],"class_list":["post-188802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-guam","tag-new-zealand","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}