Undersea exploration is now as close as the nearest computer. "Telepresence" technology lets scientists—and the public—join expeditions without leaving dry land.
A just completed expedition to the Lost City, an unusual undersea vent formation in the Atlantic Ocean, showcased the technology. The project used a network of satellites and high-speed Internet access to connect participants across many miles of land and sea.
During the expedition undersea explorer Robert Ballard and the crew aboard the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research ship Ronald H. Brown were anchored above the Lost City site. Meanwhile co-chief scientist Debbie Kelley and her colleagues were some 4,500 miles (7,250 kilometers) away on the University of Washington campus in Seattle.
At launch on July 17 Ballard described the project as a "precedent-setting ocean expedition that raises the bar on use of communications technology."
"Normally on a deep-ocean expedition, I talk with the mission's chief scientist across a table on the research vessel," he said. "In this case we talk across the planet."
Ballard's Institute for Exploration (IFE) in Mystic, Connecticut, supplied its veteran robotic vehicles, Hercules and Argus, to do the diving. The robots sent high-resolution images taken some 2,100 feet (700 meters) below the surface to the Ronald H. Brown.
The images were transferred via satellite from the ship to receivers at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. They were then sent across country to the team at the University of Washington.
All told, data from the Lost City traveled nearly 5,000 miles (8,050 kilometers) in less than two seconds.
Technology Boosts "Crew" Size, Expertise
Real-time deep-sea images have been beamed around the globe before. Ballard, who discovered the undersea wreck of the Titanic in 1985, returned to the site in 2004 and sent images to scientists at the University of Rhode Island.
But this time the lead scientists directing the expedition's research operations joined the dive virtually.
"We had a team of engineers and pilots who controlled the remotely operated vehicles [ROVs] and were taking instructions at all times from the University of Washington [science team]," Dwight Coleman said. Coleman is a professor of marine science at the University of Rhode Island and a colleague of Ballard's at IFE.
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