ABOUT NEPTUNE
Bringing the Pacific Ocean online
Stage I of the NEPTUNE project will lay an 800 km ring of powered fibre optic cable on the seabed over the northern part of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, a 200,000 sq km region in the northeast Pacific off the coasts of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon. This tectonic plate is the smallest of the dozen major plates that make up the planet’s surface and offers a full range of Earth and ocean processes for us to observe.
The NEPTUNE Canada cable network will feature five or six seafloor “laboratories”, or nodes. These nodes will be located:
From these nodes, land-based scientists will control and monitor sampling instruments, video cameras and remotely operated vehicles as they collect data from the ocean surface to under the seafloor. Instruments will be interactive—scientists will instruct them to respond to events such as storms, plankton blooms, fish migrations, earthquakes, tsunamis, and underwater volcanic eruptions, as they happen.
Information and images gathered by NEPTUNE instruments will flow instantly via the Internet to the shore station in Port Alberni, British Columbia, and from there to Victoria, British Columbia. In this way, NEPTUNE will bring this part of the Pacific Ocean online to laboratories, classrooms and living rooms around the world.
Addressing global concerns
Through NEPTUNE, scientists will observe and interact with the complex Earth and ocean processes that occur on, above and below the seafloor. The five major research themes of NEPTUNE are:
- the structure and seismic behaviour of the ocean crust
- seabed chemistry and geology
- ocean climate change and its effects on marine life at all depths
- the diversity of deep sea ecosystems
- engineering and computational research
NEPTUNE’s unprecedented access to the deep sea world will increase our understanding of the oceans in the same way that the Hubble Telescope is revolutionizing our knowledge of outer space. This new knowledge will be applied to many global problems and opportunities, such as earlier warning of earthquakes and tsunamis, more accurate estimates of commercial fish stocks, improved models for climate prediction, and potential new energy sources.
[top]
For learners of all ages
Through the Internet, learners of all ages will share in discoveries from one of the last unexplored places on Earth. Data and images from the Pacific Ocean will flow in real time to schools, aquariums, science centres, museums and libraries around the world. NEPTUNE will teach us how the oceans affect all our lives, and will inspire a new generation of ocean scientists and engineers.
A world resource
Although regional in scale, NEPTUNE will have worldwide impact. It will be available to the international research community to conduct oceanographicOnce constructed, it will be available to the international research community to conduct oceanographic experiments. Its archives will be an invaluable, lasting resource for scientists, educators, students and policy-makers everywhere.
The timeline
NEPTUNE Canada will complete installation of Stage 1 in Canadian waters in 2008, with 800km of cable linking five or six nodes hosting over 700 sensors. The US Stage 2 should be operational in 2013.
NEPTUNE will benefit from the installation of two test networks in 2006-07:
- the VENUS (Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea) project off the southern British Columbia coast. The project is led by the University of Victoria. For more information visit www.venus.uvic.ca
- the MARS (Monterey Accelerated Research System) project off Monterey, California. For more information visit www.mbari.org/mars
[top]
The economic benefits
Participation in NEPTUNE will secure Canada’s place in the front ranks of ocean science. The Canadian marine technology industry will develop new products, services and expertise that can be exported to future ocean observatories elsewhere in the world. NEPTUNE will directly support jobs in information technology, engineering, ocean resources, hazard mitigation, and research and support services. Indirect benefits are expected in the subsea robotics, communications, security, ocean management and policy development, and the education and tourism sectors.
The funding
The Canadian portion of NEPTUNE is funded by $39.9 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, and $38.5 million from the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund. Several other agencies provided support in the planning and installation phases and, with initial US grants, the total funding is $112 million.
Funding for the US portion comes from the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, the W.M. Keck Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the NEPTUNE partner institutions.
The partners
NEPTUNE is a joint U.S.-Canada venture led by the University of Victoria in Canada and the University of Washington working with the National Science Foundation's ORION Project Office in the U.S. The international partnership has involved Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and the Institute for Pacific Ocean Science and Technology (Canada).
The University of Victoria, recognized internationally for its excellence in earth and ocean systems research and education, is leading a consortium of 12 Canadian universities. Also associated with the Canadian portion of NEPTUNE are: Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Natural Resources Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, the Department of National Defence, Environment Canada, Parks Canada, Industry Canada and CANARIE, the Bamfield Marine Science Centre, and the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre.
NEPTUNE Canada has contracted with Alcatel Submarine Networks and its main subcontractors, Texcel and L3 MariPro, to install the Stage 1 array. Many other industrial partners are contracted to design and supply instruments, and database and management systems.
[top]
|
