The NEPTUNE Canada Regional Cabled Ocean Observatory

The NEPTUNE Canada
Regional Cabled Ocean Observatory
An Overview of the Progress of Installation
And the Design of the Science Experiments
By Dr. Chris R. Barnes
Project Director
Dr. Mairi M.R. Best
Associate Director of Science
NEPTUNE Canada
University of Victoria
and
Dr. Adam Zielinski
Professor
Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering
University of Victoria
Victoria, Canada
he North-East Pacific Time-Series
T
Undersea Networked Experiments
(NEPTUNE)Canada will be the world's
first multi-node regional cabled ocean
observatory.This innovative network of
five subseaobservatorieswill be linked
by 800 kilometers of powered electrooptic cable acrossthe northern Juan de
Fucatectonic plate. By about 2014, the
u.s. portion will be installed, also comprising five observatory nodes, so that
both networks combined will span the
Juan de Fuca Plate (200,000 square
kilometers). Hundreds of sensors will
be located on the seafloor in boreholes
and buoyed in the water column.
Remotelyoperated vehicles (ROVs)will
reside at depth, powered at observatory
nodes and directed from distant labs.
Continuous near-real-time multidisciplinary measurementserieswill extend
for more than 25 years.The initial data
flow of 50 terabytes per year will be
managed through a Web servicesenvironment.
The many researchthemes addressed
by NEPTUNE Canada will include
structure and seismic behavior of the
ocean crust; dynamics of hot and cold
10
sf / JULY
2008
Basetnlps:
uSGS Open File No. 9i-368
Pro;ectiOn:UTMZ9NWGS&4
NEPTUNE Canada cable route showing
node locations (with depths) and the Port
Alberni shore station, extending west of
Vancouver Island.
the Sea (VENUS) and Monterey
Accelerated Research System (MARS)
ocean observatoriesand will use simi-
fluids and gas hydrates in the upper
ocean crust and overlying sediments;
ocean and climate change and effects
on ocean biota and fisheries at all
lar cable and engineering systems.The
NEPTUNECanada and VENUS observatories, within Ocean Networks
Canada,will form a linked coastaland
regional cabled ocean observatory system, among the first of many being
planned (i.e., Japan, Taiwan, Western
Europe,China).
depths;
deep-sea sedimentation,
ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity;
and engineering and computational
systems research. These involve interacting processes, long-term changes
and chaotic, episodic events that are
difficult to study and quantify by traditional means.
The NEPTUNECanada observatory
has collaborated closely with the
Victoria Experimental Network Under
www.sea-technology.com
Planning and Installation
NEPTUNECanada represents a consortium of 12 Canadian universities
(Memorial, Dalhousie, Rimouski, Laval,
Universite du Quebec
Montreal,
Toronto, Guelph, Waterloo, Manitoba,
Simon Fraser, University of British
Columbia and Victoria), led by the
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(Above) ROV-serviceable node, similar to
those used by NEPTUNE Canada, lowered
into a trawl-resistant frame manufactured
by L-3 Communications MariPro at the
MARS observatory and the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute. (Photo courtesy of L-3 Communications.)
(RighV A vertical profiler (400 meters) will
be located near Barkley Canyon, manufactured by NGK Ocean.
University of Victoria (UVic). Under the
terms of the major funding awards,
UVic must both own and operate the
observatory,and it hasdevelopedspace
on campus for the operations and data
center for NEPTUNE Canada and
VENUS.
In 2005, UVic contracted with New
Southgate, England-based Alcatel
Submarine Networks (ASN) to design,
manufacture and install the wet plant
infrastructure (cable and nodes).
Subcontractors
include
Texcel
Technology (Crayford, England), L-3
Communications
MariPro (Goleta,
California) and Alcatel-Lucent Canada
(Markham, Canada).
Ocean Works International (North
Vancouver, Canada) is building the
junction boxes, and Tokyo,Japan-based
Nichiyu Giken Kogyo Co. Ltd. (NGK
Ocean) is making the 400-meter vertical profiler for the Barkley Canyon site.
The 800-kilometer cable loop from
UVic's shore station at Port Alberni,
Canada, out to Endeavour Ridge will
include five instrumented observatory
nodes located at coastal FolgerPassage;
slope sites of ocean .drilling program
(ODP) 889 and Barkley Canyon; a midplate, abyssalplain ODP 1027 site; and
an ocean spreading site at the
Endeavoursegmentof the Juande Fuca
www.sea-technology.com
Ridge.A sixth node will be established
at Middle Valley (a sedimented portion
of the Juan de Fuca Ridge) with future
funding.
ASN designed, manufactured and
installed the cable with the repeaters,
branching units and spur cablesover 11
weeks in fall 2007.
The nodes will be installed by ASN
from May to June 2009, followed by
deployment of the secondary cables,
junction boxes and instruments by
JULY2008 / sf
11
NEPTUNE Canada. Final commissioning is expected in late 2009.
Experiments and Instrumentation
The approved community science
experiments, using several hundred
sensors, will focus on the study of
hydrothermal systems on the Juan de
Fuca Ridge,gas hydratesoutcropping in
Barkley Canyon and in the subsurface
at ODP 889, the coupling between
physical and biological systems off
Vancouver Island, the dynamics of
deep-sea benthic ecosystems, the
inshore physical and biological
oceanography near BarkleySound and
the hydrologic regime in the oceanic
crust and tsunami monitoring at site
ODP 1027.
Hydrothermal
Systems.
The
Endeavour team will deploy instruments at two of five vent fields on the
Endeavoursegment of the Juan de Fuca
Ridge, at Main Endeavour Field and
Mothra.
These include temperature resistivity
probes, microbial incubators, high-resolution digital cameras and McLane
(Falmouth, Massachusetts) fluid samplers. A regional circulation experiment
designed to characterize hydrothermally driven water mass movement will
have four mooring arrays extending 250
meters
into the water column.
Instrumentation will consist of acoustic
3D current meters situated at 10, 50,
125 and 250 meters above the seafloor.
With each current meter, a sensor will
measure temperature and salinity variations. One bottom-pressure sensor will
measure local tides.
Refurbishment and redeployment of
the University of Washington's shortperiod seismometers at Endeavour will
permit continuation of the time series of
seismic observations.
Deployment of a broadband seismometer will allow for the characterization of overall seismicity and examination of linkages between local tectonics and biological and oceanographic phenomena.
A bottom-pressure
recorder deployed near Endeavour
Ridge is part of the tsunami-monitoring
network.
Gas Hydrate. Various instruments
deployed near the known outcropping
of gas hydrates along the northwest wall
of Barkley Canyon will record accretion
and degradation of hydrate mound
structures, as well as changes in biological and chemical activity. Sensors will
include in-situ temperature probes at
depths of one meter or more, three
rotary still cameras and a crawler developed at Jacobs University, in Bremen,
Germany. The latter will carry a conductivity-temperature-depth
recorder
(CTD), a methane sensor, a Schlieren
optical system, a Webcam to control
vehicle movements, a video system to
quantify gas bubbles and, possibly, oxygen sensors or a benthic flow simulation chamber to study particle dynamics.
Biophysical Linkages, Shelf Slope. A
water column experiment will develop
a better understanding of the coupling
between the physics and the biology off
the southwest of Vancouver Island,
relating this coupling to variability in
oceanographic processes and responding to long-term climate change.
Instrumentation will consist of a 400meter water column profiler, located on
the continental slope eight kilometers
north of Barkley Canyon.
This profiler, equipped with aCTO,
oxygen sensor, fluorometer, transmissometer, nitrate sensor, carbon dioxide
sensor, multifrequency acoustics package
and
upwelling/downwelling
radiometer, will acquire profiles of
water properties through the entire
water column. Bottom-mounted instruments will consist of an upward-looking 150-kilohertz acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) and pressure sensor.
Deep-Sea Benthic Ecosystems. A
benthic ecology experiment in the
highly productive area near Barkley
Canyon, characterized
by seasonal
upwelling, will interface with the water
column team. It will examine changes
in benthic communities related to transfer of energy and nutrients from the
water column to the seafloor, as well as
through the canyon.
Equipment deployed at four separate
sites along northwest Barkley Canyon
and within the axis will investigate
downslope
sediment transfer. One
instrument pod will be located near the
vertical profiler.
Instrumentation will consist of
acoustic current meters,sedimenttraps,
rotary sonar systems,plankton pumps,
video cameras, high-resolution still
cameras, a CTD with fluorometer, a
microbial metabolic sensor package
and a laser optical plankton counter. A
sf I JULY2008
www.sea-technology.com
hydrophone deployed near the canyon
should detect both slope failures and
marine mammals.
Coastal Oceanography. The Folger
Passagesite, located in Barkley Sound,
10 kilometers west of Bamfield Marine
Science Centre, will consist of two
installations, one at 95 meters' water
depth and another near the summit of a
rocky pinnacle in 15 meters of water.
Overall objectives are to identify factors
that control biological productivity,
both within the water column and at
the seafloor; to evaluate the effects of
marine processes on fish and marine
mammals; and to provide learning
opportunities for students, researchers
and the public.
The deepwater instrument package
will consist of an ADCp,multifrequency
bioacoustic sensor, oxygen sensorand
temperature/salinity
sensor.
A
hydrophone will detect and characterize marine mammals. Instruments on
the pinnacle will include a 3D camera
array to examine the responseof rocky
reef organisms to environmental variability, upward and downward-looking
high-frequency ADCPs and a light sensor.
The Folger Passagesite will be complementary to the water column site on
the continental slope at 400 meters'
water depth, where the vertical profiler
will collect a variety of water property
and biological data.
Tsunamis-Seismicity. At site ODP
1027 on the abyssal plain in 2,660
meters' water depth, existing ocean
drilling program borehole monitoring
systemswill be connected to the observatory.
Two circulation obviation retrofit kits
(CORKs)were placed in 1996 and an
additional two in 2002. Two CORKs
will be connected. The holes extend
tens to hundreds of meters into the
igneous seafloor through a sediment
cover of a few hundred meters.
Objectives are to monitor changes in
crustal temperature and pressure, particularly asthey relate to eventssuch as
earthquakes, hydrothermal convection
or regional plate strain.
A 10-kilometer triangular array of
very
sensitive
bottom-pressure
recorders will function as part of a
tsunami array of bottom-pressure
recorders and will determine openocean tsunami amplitude, propagation
r
direction and speed.This tsunami array
will complement data from buoy sensorsand coastal tide gaugesaround the
North Pacific and contribute to knowledge of tsunami (and other large wave)
behavior, as well as provide real-time
monitoring of the phenomena.
Nearby at the Baby Bareigneousoutcrop, a broadband seismometer with
associated hydrophone and a singlepoint current meter will be deployed.
Baby Bare exhibits slow fluid venting
from the seafloor and may prove of
great interest in the study of biota located within this broad expanse of flat
abyssalplain sediments.
Gas Hydrates. Site ODP 889 is located on the continental slope in about
1,250 meters of water in a widely studied area characterized by shallowly
buried gashydrates.
Initially, most instruments deployed
in the Bull's Eye area will consist of
suites of geophysical instruments,
including a controlled source electromagnetic system and receiver, seafloor
compliance system (gravimeter) and
geophone array.
The objective is to monitor changes
in hydrate distribution, depth, structure
I
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JULY2008 / sf
13
and properties, particularly in relation
to earthquakes and regional plate
motion.
A broadband seismometerand associated hydrophone and single-point
current sensorwill be placed nearby,as
will a bottom-pressurerecorder, as part
of the tsunami array.
In the future, with additional ODP
drilling planned, CORKs may be
installed and connected to the network
to complement other studies of gas
hydrates and fluid fluxes on the continental margin.
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advanced Internetdevelopmentorganization, CANARIE.
In-kind support and other grant
awards have come from many partners
and contractorsnoted.Thisarticle summarizes ongoingwork of the NEPTUNE
Canada team and participating scien-
tists.
.
DMAS
I
Acknowledgments
Financial support was provided for
the installation and initial operating
phasesfrom the CanadaFoundationfor
Innovation,
British
Columbia
Knowledge
Development
Fund,
Natural Sciences and Engineering
Council of Canada and Canada's
The data management and archive
system (DMAS),adopting Web services
and service-oriented architecture, has
the ability to subscribe to data streams
of selected sensors, detect user-specified events,precisely time-tag measurements and interact directly with instruments.
Other planned features include the
ability to program instruments to react
to scheduled or unscheduled activities,
report issueswith instruments, provide
preprocessed data (such as hourly or
daily averages),provide a geographical
interface (geographic information system) access to the data and support
links to other databases.Initially, about
50 terabytesof data per year are expect-
ed.
Visit our Web site at www.sea-technology.com, and click on the title of this
article in the Table of Contents to be
linked to the respectivecompany'sWeb
site.
Dr. Chris R. Barnesis
project director for the
North-East
Pacific
Time-SeriesUndersea
Networked
Experiments Canada, University of Victoria. Earlier appointments at the University of
Waterloo, Memorial University of Newfoundland and GeologicalSurveyof Canada
were fol/owed by concurrent appointments
as director of the Centreof Earthand Ocean
Research and School of Earth and Ocean
Conclusions
Sciencesat the University of Victoria.
The NEPTUNE Canada project has
advancedfrom the planning and design
phase to the installation and operating
phases,with expendituresfrom its $100
million budget for defined acquisitions
and technological developments. The
800-kilometer backbone cable was
installed in 2007; the five nodes and
several hundred sensors will be
deployed in 2009.
The observatory is expected to be
fully operational in late 2009. The U.S.
component (Regional Scale Nodes of
Ocean Observing Initiatives) will add
five nodeson the southernJuande Fuca
Plate by 2014.
NEPTUNECanada; its principal contractor ASN, with its subcontractors
Texcel
Technology
and
L-3
Communications MariPro; OceanWorks International; .and NGK Ocean
are playing leading roles in the development of new technologies for cabled
ocean observatoriesthat will transform
the ocean sciences.
Dr. Mairi M.R. Best
www.sea-technology.com
was assistantprofessor
at McGill University
prior to joining the
North-East
Pacific
Time-SeriesUndersea
Networked
ExperimentsCanadaasassociate director of science. Her research into
preservation of calcium carbonate skeletons
includes experiments through the Victoria
ExperimentalNetwork Under the Seaand a
Ph.D. at the University of Chicago and
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on
the cycling of biogenic carbonatein the tropics.
Dr. Adam Zielinski is a
professor
at
the
University of Victoria,
Department of Electrical and Computer
Engineering.His areas
of expertise and current interests include
underwater acoustics sensing,communication, instrumentationand signalprocessing.