In the News
September, 2024
SCOR Canadian Ocean Science Newsletter
2024 NEPDEP wrap-up video
In the July Newsletter, we featured the ROPOS team winning the J.P. Tully Medal. Here is a good example of the use of ROPOS from NEPDEP’s YouTube video.
September 20, 2024
Deep-Sea Life, Issue 23
CroCHEt - Cross Border Coral Habitat Exploration
The NOAA ship Henry B. Bigelow hosted CSSF ROPOS team and nine researchers from Canada and the USA for a research expedition to explore coral habitats in submarine canyons (NW Atlantic) and the Gulf of Maine from 17 -31 July 2024 (Fig.1).
September 20, 2024
Deep-Sea Life, Issue 23
Stanley Kim Juniper
It was another great idea hatched somewhere off the west coast of Canada. They were always coming – some realistic and others, perhaps a bit far-fetched.
September 6, 2023
Ocean Decade Collaborative Center Northeast Pacific
People of the Ocean Decade: Dr. Cherisse Du Preez
Behind every UN Ocean Decade Action is a team of dedicated and passionate ocean professionals. Oriana Smy had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Cherisse Du Preez, who is certainly no exception to this statement.
July 28, 2023
le blob l' extra-média
Tout un écosystème découvert dans les abysses du Pacifique
Dans des écosystèmes méconnus des profondeurs du Pacifique canadien, l’expédition Nepdep (Northeast Pacific Deep-sea Expedition) a découvert des espèces rares, l’activité d’un volcan sous-marin réputé éteint… et une pouponnière géante de raies blanches!
July 4, 2023
Victoria News
Expedition explores supervolcanoes and deep-sea firsts in B.C. waters
Footage of superheated geysers, novel images of species behaviour caught off Vancouver Island.
June 25, 2023
CBC News
'Super octo-mom' off B.C. coast fights king crabs to protect her young
The research team witnessed the standoff during a 2-week expedition to explore B.C.'s deep sea biodiversity.
June 13, 2023
Chek News
Scientists discover new ecosystems and life in B.C.’s deep sea
A recent expedition in B.C.’s ocean deep helped scientists discover new ecosystems and potential species that haven’t been seen before.
December 8, 2022
NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative
RCA and ROPOS: A Long-Term International Collaboration
A Canadian and American team worked side-by-side for 45 days in August in the NE Pacific Ocean during the eighth operations and maintenance expedition for OOI’s Regional Cabled Array (RCA).
March 26, 2021
The Gisborne Herald
‘Exciting’ quake data
Scientists from GNS Science, Niwa and the University of Washington have been on board Niwa's research vessel Tangaroa, gathering data using a state-of-the-art underwater Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) called ROPOS.
March 25, 2021
NewsHub
Hopes earthquake forecasting will improve after scientists collect fault line data from east coast subduction zone
GNS Science hopes the information from the Hikurangi Subduction Zone of the North Island's east coast could be used to link slow-slip earthquakes to seismic events. And the information may even help them better forecast quakes in the future.
March 25, 2021
Radio New Zealand
Undersea robots go deep in study of earthquakes
Undersea robots have been collecting new data from deep under the ocean floor to better understand earthquakes like the one that sparked tsunami fears this month.
March 23, 2021
New Zealand Herald
Scientists uncover sub-seafloor secrets about NZ's quakes
Scientists have finished gathering a wealth of new data about earthquake activity from beneath the East Coast seafloor - including some "very interesting changes" recorded around this month's magnitude 7.3 shake.
March 10, 2021
New Zealand Herald
Satellite view shows Raoul Island before and after quakes, tsunami
During a voyage aboard Niwa's research vessel Tangaroa, scientists from GNS Science, Niwa and University of Washington will use the ROV to download the latest data from a recently installed seafloor observatory.
January 27, 2020
MERC
MERC Collaborates on BGR Marine Mineral Exploration
Metal Earth participates in mineral exploration research on the seafloor as part of the INDEX program with Germany’s Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR).
March 8, 2019
iPolitics
‘Crown jewel’ of the Gulf of St. Lawrence part of new marine protected area
Official protection of the area has been a long time coming, with efforts to have the peninsula designated having started in 2011. This week, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made it official.
May 8, 2017
The Globe and Mail
Expedition to rare glass sponge reefs in B.C. to be livestreamed
A team of scientists is aiming to give online viewers their best look yet at Canada’s most exotic marine ecosystem that’s also a potential candidate for designation as a World Heritage site.
May 31, 2016
Smithsonian
Scientists Explore Breathtaking Hydrothermal Vents in Virtual Reality
With a high-tech remotely operated vehicle, a team is able to map a dark, hot and toxic vent field on the ocean floor.
December 17, 2015
The Globe and Mail
No more coasting
The waters of Hecate Strait are restless and notoriously unpredictable. But down at the bottom of the 100-kilometre-wide channel that separates Haida Gwaii from mainland British Columbia lies a series of formations so astonishing that even now, nearly 30 years after discovery, scientists can hardly believe what they are seeing.
August 10, 2015
Ocean News & Technology
OOI Team First to See April 24, 2015 Eruption of Axial Seamount
At 7:33 p.m. PST on July 26th, 2015, after descending ~1840 m beneath the oceans surface, the remotely operated vehicle ROPOS and the University of Washington Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Cabled Array team set first eyes on the April 24th, 2015 voluminous eruption of Axial Seamount during the VISIONS’ 15 cruise. Within two minutes of reaching the seafloor, fresh bulbous pillow flows on top of older flows were encountered.
July 07, 2015
PBS Newshour
The challenges of wiring up an undersea volcanot
Hundreds of miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, there's an undersea volcano known as Axial Seamount. Two months ago when it began spewing lava, it wasn't a secret to a group of scientists engaged in a groundbreaking research project. Hari Sreenivasan reports on their Cabled Observatory -- a network of sensors, moorings and cameras that offers views of a little-known world.
March 3, 2015
Vancouver Magazine
Sponge Blob Rare Plants
At 160 metres beneath the ocean waves, it's snowing hard. Streams of sediment, particulates, and bacteria drift past the wide-angle lenses of the robotic submersible as it descends. "We're getting close, guys," University of Alberta biologist Sally Leys tells its pilots. "I see the bottom. Slow..." From the grey/brown sea floor loom shrubs of sea sponges in pale yellow and dish-glove orange. "Aren't they pretty?" Leys asks. Images of tubular sponges -- like a cross between a brass instrument and giant cannelloni -- fill the video feeds.
October 6, 2014
IEEE Spectrum
Expedition Brings High Speed Connectivity to the Ocean Floor
Members of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatory Initiative (OOI) are approaching the end of an nearly three month-long cruise during which they installed a fiberoptic cables and power lines that form the backbone of a seafloor observatory in the Pacific Ocean. The observatory will make it possible for oceanographers and other researchers to gather data about the ocean floor in real time from a network of seismometers, cameras, and other sensors hundreds of kilometers off-shore and as deep as 1800 meters beneath the ocean's surface.
September 22, 2014
Subsea world news
UW Students in Subsea Observatory Setup
Throughout the 83-day expedition, groups of UW students have each spent two weeks or more working aboard the UW’s large research vessel, the Thomas G. Thompson. Around 45 students, mostly undergraduates, are participating. Most are taking the Ocean 411: Seagoing Research and Discovery course, which has them working with scientists, engineers – and a specialized robot called ROPOS that installs cables, power and communication hubs, and instruments on the ocean floor as part of the observatory construction phase.
June 17, 2014
Cape Cod Times
Scientists chase, study deep coral
Deep-water coral is a lot harder to find and study than its Caribbean and South Pacific counterparts. It took scientists Martha Nizinski and Anna Metaxas two years to mount an expedition to the eastern edge of Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine to study these colonial animals that feed on the detritus that rains down on them from above.
June 17, 2014
NOAA Newsroom
Deep-Diving Vehicle Gets U.S. and Canadian Scientists Close to Deep-Sea Corals in the Gulf of Maine
A team of U.S. and Canadian scientists and engineers will spend two weeks at the end of June surveying and collecting samples of deep-sea corals and related marine life in canyons in the northern Gulf of Maine in both U.S. and Canadian waters.
October 19, 2013
Science News
Deep network: Real-time monitoring of the seafloor reveals unexpected links
The Neptune observatory takes advantage of the undersea equipment, such as Wally, to gather real time data about the ever changing ocean enviroment. John Delaney's vision of having cabled observatories to collect data back in 1991 has come almost full circle with the Ocean Observatories Initiative's Regional Scale Nodes. Some of the equipment used in the cabled observatories will be used to detect the methane gasses release by the decaying biomass at the bottom of the oceans. Seismometers, video cameras, and CTD(Condutivity, Temperature, Depth) sensors, are used to provide real time data to scientists and students on shore.
September 6, 2013
Victoria News
Breathing new life into ocean research
ROPOS assisting researchers aboard the R/V Falkor to study the migration of low oxygen enviroments surrounding the Vancouver Island area.
September 6, 2013
Douglas Business Magazine
Ocean Networks Canada and Schmidt Ocean Institute Team Up for Leading Science Research
Ocean Networks Canada teams up with Schmidt Ocean Institute to collect data on the low oxygen flows.
September 6, 2013
Global News
Sea Floor Study
R/V Falkor assisting research of the marine low oxygen enviroments
September 5, 2013
Times Columnist
Researchers explore low-oxygen waters off Vancouver Island
Researcher aboard the R/V Falkor study the low oxygen enviroments around the coast of Vancouver Island. With the help of ROPOS, researchers can map the migration of these low oxygen area.
September 5, 2013
SFGate
Google's voyage to bottom of the sea's dead zone
R/V Falkor's voyage to Axial seamount with ROPOS to conduct research on submarine volcanos.
September 5, 2013
CFAX
World Class Research Vessel Docks at Ogden Point
R/V Falkor docked at Ogden point, scientists study areas of low oxygen enviroment
August 10, 2013
StarTribune
Science briefs: Research ship will explore dead zone
R/V Falkor teams with researchers and ROPOS to study the dead zone
June 27, 2013
King 5 News
UW takes major step in establishing ocean observatory
The Thomas G Thompson prepares for another summer of undersea observatory installation, wiring, and testing using the ROPOS. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the Ocean Observatories Intiative is set to start streaming live data starting in 2015.
June 5, 2013
CFI
Canada rides the ocean science wave
Canadian researcher study the oceans surrounding Canada. Researchers from BC using the VENUS and NEPTUNE obervatories to collect oceanic data from the Pacific Ocean, while the Canadian Artic Shelf Exchange Study face down the challenges of conducting research in the Artic.
October 5, 2012
The Vancouver Sun
Science, engineering help unravel mysteries in Strait of Georgia
Researchers from the University of Victoria use pig carcasses to study decomposition in the sea.
September 5, 2011
Wired
Giant research vessel works on web-enabled ocean sensor network
The Thomas G Thompson along with ROPOS assist in the installation of the Ocean Observatories Initiative's high power and high bandwidth cabled ocean observatory.