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Early next week, the 140-metre-long Ile de Seine – one of the largest cable-laying ships in the world – will pull into Port Alberni harbour in British Columbia, completing the first chapter of a mammoth research project to unlock the secrets of the ocean depths. The project, known as NEPTUNE, will create a permanent underwater laboratory off the west coast of Vancouver Island – allowing researchers to observe the ocean and its creatures in real time with everything from high-definition cameras to unmanned submersibles.
Chris Barnes, project director for NEPTUNE (which stands for the North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Network Experiment) said most ocean research is conducted by scientists going out to sea for short voyages and collecting whatever data they can.
NEPTUNE – the first project of its kind – will allow researchers to study the seas continuously from land.
“I don’t think it’s too bold to say . . . that it will basically transform ocean science,” said Barnes. “This is basically the wiring of the ocean.”
The project, led by the University of Victoria, will aid research in a number of areas, said Barnes, including fish migration, earthquake research and climate change.
And what makes the entire $100-million project possible is an 800-kilometre loop of fibre-optic cable that will connect everything at sea to a research station back on land.
Laying that cable has been the job of the Ile de Seine, a ship owned by the French firm Alcatel-Lucent, and its 50-member crew.
Barnes said cable-laying ships like the Ile de Seine are accustomed to laying undersea communications cables for things like telephone and Internet service.
But such cables are usually in safe spots where they will be out of harm’s way – like soft, muddy sediment in very deep water.
Laying cables for NEPTUNE is a lot tougher, said Barnes, because researchers want to be at the most interesting spots.
That includes the Endeavour Ridge, about 250 kilometres offshore, an area of intense volcanic activity where vents spew out a toxic mix of super-heated water and chemicals, as hot as 300 C.
“It’s a very harsh, rocky, sylphic environment – over which we’re laying a small cable,” said Barnes.
Scientists are interested in the area because near the vents, in waters still boiling hot, live a number of creatures particularly adapted to the harsh conditions.
To protect the cable in some harsh areas – and in shallow waters where it could be at risk from trawling ships – the Ile de Seine uses a massive, 30-tonne plow to dig a trench in which the cable can sit.
In some areas, the cable is also protected by a thin armour – a series of spiralling steel wires surrounded by a plastic coating which make it about as thick as your wrist.
Underneath all that protection, the cable itself is almost unbelievably tiny.
A thin copper sheathing will transmit the 10,000 volts of power needed to power the hundreds of devices along the network.
And two fibre-optic cables – each not much bigger than a human hair – will transmit data back to shore at a speed of between four and 10 gigabits per second.
To put that in perspective, that’s about a thousand times faster than a really good broadband Internet connection.
Barnes said that transmission capacity will allow NEPTUNE to receive high-definition television images from the ocean floor in real time.
With the laying of the cable almost complete, the next stage will be the installation of five underwater nodes that will serve as hubs for the equipment.
Those nodes, each weighing about 6.5 tonnes, are still being built and will be lowered in place about a year from now.
After that, the various scientific instruments will be installed – with the hope that NEPTUNE will go live sometime in late 2008 or early 2009.
Vancouver Sun
cskelton@png.canwest.com
