Robotic Vehicles to Be Used to Search for Life Under Arctic Ice

Deep below the Arctic ice lies the 1,800km Gakkel Ridge, which stretches along the sea floor from the Northern tip of Greenland to Siberia. Researchers suspect that the ridge-which ranges from 1.8 to 3 miles deep-may be home to unique and never-before-seen fauna. This July, a team of scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) will set out to explore the ridge using newly developed robotic vehicles.

Because equipment used in other oceanographic explorations cannot be safely operated in the Arctic due to hazards such as moving ice flows, two vehicles and a tethered sampling system were designed and built for the project. The Puma AUV (autonomous underwater vehicle) will be used to detect and hone in on hydrothermal vents. Once the scientists have found an area to focus their survey on, they will send down the Jaguar AUV to map the sea floor using sonar. Using information from the new maps, operators will guide down the CAMPER vehicle. Unlike the other two robots, CAMPER will remain tethered to the research ship, and can collect samples of sediments and creatures from the ocean floor.

Scientists are interested in the hydrothermal vents because regions with vents serve as centers of biological activity and diversity in the deep sea. Chemicals released by vents support diverse, isolated communities of organisms in places too deep to be reached by light. Additionally, the Gakkel Ridge has been largely isolated from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for an estimated 26 million years, suggesting that hydrothermal vent communities there may be dramatically different from organisms which live near vents in other sites. According to Tim Shank, a WHOI hydrothermal vent biologist, "We know that deep-sea Arctic fauna found away from vents are more than 70 percent different from all others around the world. So at hydrothermal vents we are likely to find completely new suites of species with never-before seen adaptations."

Aside from the unique biota they support, researchers are interested in hydrothermal vents because it is believed the chemical environment around them is similar to that which was present when life first arose on earth. It is believed that studying these organisms may provide insight into what the earliest organisms were like.

The expedition of some 30 researchers, including chemists, engineers, geochemists, oceanographers, and marine biologists, will set out on the Swedish icebreaker Oden on July 1^st . During the 40 day expedition, the team will provide daily updates via the web to the public through the WHOI Polar Discovery website.

References:

WHOI Polar Discovery Website. http://polardiscovery.whoi.edu/

WHOI Press Release: Explorers to Use New Robotic Vehicles to Hunt for Life and Hydrothermal Vents on Arctic Seafloor.
http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=28811&ct=162
Robots to look for life in Arctic Ocean. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070623/ap_on_sc/arctic_new_life;_ylt=AnsqLKAU9DawQhpbk9O0fVMPLBIF