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NEPTUNE Q&As1. What is NEPTUNE? The Northeast Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiment. NEPTUNE—the first large-scale cabled ocean observatory—will cover the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. This powered, fibre-optic telescope to inner space will have a network of approximately 30 undersea “laboratories” connected to shore stations, with computer control for unprecedented real-time observations of, and experiments within, the dynamic earth-ocean systems. Simply stated, NEPTUNE will bring power and the Internet to the ocean floor.
NEPTUNE’s 3,000 kilometres of fibre-optic powered cable will cover the complete Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, an area of 200,000 square kilometres off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. Shore stations will be located in Victoria, B.C., and Nedonna Beach, OR. This tectonic plate in the Northeast Pacific Ocean is the smallest of the dozen that make up the planet's surface, and its ideal location offers a representative spectrum of global earth-ocean processes.
Data from the NEPTUNE network will flow in real time via the Internet to land-based laboratories and classrooms. Scientists, students, decision makers, and the general public will be able to use the NEPTUNE network to gain a new understanding of earthquakes, tsunamis, fish stock assessment, marine mammal populations, metal and hydrocarbon deposits, and human influences on ocean and climate systems. Scientists on land will be able to make changes in sampling or observations via instrument command and control. Fundamentally, it will provide long time-series of critical crustal and oceanographic data, unattainable by current ship-based methods of ocean investigation.
NEPTUNE will help answer a number of difficult and increasingly important questions. For example, it will improve the measurement of fish stocks and suggest what levels of harvest are sustainable. It will also help scientists investigate new offshore hydrocarbon sources, called gas hydrates, and other undersea resources. NEPTUNE data will contribute to improved environmental protection and assessment. In addition, it should provide an earlier warning of earthquakes, tsunamis and other hazards to human safety.
Traditionally, oceanographers’ research has been limited to the availability of ships. Instead of being able to collect years or even decades of continuous, time-series, data they were restricted to short periods of study. Now, free from the limitations of ship schedules, bad weather, and delayed access to data, scientists anywhere in the world will be able to monitor their deep-sea experiments in real time on the Internet. They will routinely command their instruments and undersea robots to respond to storms, plankton blooms, fish migrations, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, slope slides and other events.
The University of Victoria’s Canadian partners in NEPTUNE include IPOST (the Institute for Pacific Ocean Science and Technology); researchers at 11 other universities (Memorial, Dalhousie, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Université du Québec à Montréal, McGill, Carleton, Toronto, Waterloo, Manitoba, Simon Fraser, and UBC); and three federal agencies (Institute of Ocean Sciences, Pacific Geoscience Centre, and the National Research Council’s Herzberg Institute for Astrophysics). The lead U.S. institutions are the University of Washington, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at CalTech and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
Canadian scientists from coast to coast are eager to use NEPTUNE to move
ahead in four major research areas:
Because some portions of the NEPTUNE cable will be laid near the shore, the program will be subject to several legal and regulatory requirements of provinsical, state and federal agencies. Other entities with interests in NEPTUNE are the Canadian and U.S. Navy, First Nations bands, fishing organizations, environmental groups, coastal communities near NEPTUNE shore landings, and telecommunication companies. Several meetings involving stakeholder groups have already been held and more are planned.
Though funded separately, two other related projects, VENUS and MARS, are part of the overall NEPTUNE planning process. VENUS (the Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea) will be a real-time, shallow-water, ocean observation system linked by 46 kilometres of fibre-optic cable. It will act as a shallow water test bed for NEPTUNE. VENUS will provide continuous biological, oceanographic and geological data from three locations: Saanich Inlet, Georgia Strait (between Galiano Island, Tsawwassen and the Fraser Delta), and Juan de Fuca Strait between Pedder Bay and Race Rocks. With its array of probes, sensors, cameras and microphones, It will be a vast improvement over the limiting and sparse observations that currently come from ships and moored instruments. The project leader for VENUS is the University of Victoria’s Dr. Verena Tunnicliffe (School of Earth and Ocean Sciences and the Department of Biology).
Resource extraction is moving into the deep sea, climate change is affecting fisheries and populations are expanding in earthquake-prone coastal regions. NEPTUNE will be the first of many such cabled ocean observatories, and will attract worldwide attention. There is much to be gained by being among the scientific and industrial pioneers. The ocean is the world’s last unknown frontier. As such it remains a mysterious and wondrous place, but it is under enormous pressure as technology and necessity combine to explore its potential resources. NEPTUNE’s impact on our understanding of the mysteries and vital role of the ocean has the potential to be as profound as the Hubble Telescope is having on our knowledge of Space. It will revolutionize ocean science.
The Canadian, and especially B.C.’s, marine technology industry can develop new products, services and expertise and gain exposure in new markets worldwide. Indeed, the present market for such goods and services is about $6 billion annually, and B.C. firms will be better positioned to tap into it. New scientific understanding will help with real Canadian problems and opportunities. The multidisciplinary data archive will be a lasting, interactive resource for scientists, industry and regulators. The Canadian public will share in the discoveries of one of the last unexplored places on Earth. Data and imagery available “as it happens” will be relayed and packaged into a wealth of educational, tourist, and public programming. A market study has been completed for a Victoria Ocean Science Observatory to deliver this original material to the public who will be able to participate in some deep-sea experiments using the advanced technologies. The output can be transmitted to museums, science centres, schools, universities and the media across the nation and the world in real time.
NEPTUNE’s Internet technology offers great educational potential. It can provide a wide range of new opportunities to explore and investigate the dynamics of the marine world using real time data flow to classrooms and living rooms. It will include highly innovative science and technology, will be multidisciplinary, and will allow participation in a bold new international megaproject. NEPTUNE will establish partnerships with teachers and grade school students, undergraduates, and graduate students through workshops, curriculum development, and existing programs, while exploring new opportunities for optimal use of the live data flow and data archives.
As a US/Canada (70/30) partnership, the total cost of the installing the NEPTUNE facility is estimated at about $330 million from concept to operation.
Currently, the University of Victoria is in discussion with the Canada Foundation for Innovation regarding what level of funding NEPTUNE will be eligible to receive.
Depending when funding is secured, the NEPTUNE network is expected to be operational by 2006 and last for at least 30 years.
Visit the NEPTUNE US Web
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