January 11, 2008

My name is Luke Moscatel and I'm in Ms. Sheild's class.
My question is what happens if the robots malfunction while underwater?

Thank you.

Dear Luke:

There are several ways to get an AUV back if it malfunctions underwater. If the engineers have communications with the vehicle, they can send it a message to abort the dive and come back to the surface.

If that doesn’t work, then there is a method that is programmed in to the AUV when it is on the surface. For each mission, the AUV is programmed with the track it will run, and is also given a maximum time to complete it. Once that time has elapsed, the vehicle will drive back to the surface.

The final way the AUV will return to the surface is when its batteries run out. Then, because it is positively buoyant, it will slowly float back to the surface.

Thanks for the question and for following Dive and Discover!

Susan Humphris

Dear Dive and Discover,

I am a student from Duxbury MA. My question to you is, what kind of deep-sea creatures live on the hydrothermal vents? Also when lights hit them how do they respond?

Sincerely,
Jacquelyn Perry

Dear Jacquelyn:

Thanks for the question. You can check on what kind of deep-sea creatures live at hydrothermal vents, and find out about them by going to the Vent Biology module on the Dive and Discover website.

How do they respond when lights hit these animals? Good question! The difficulty is that you cannot see them without turning the lights on, so we are not yet able to tell whether the lights change their behavior.

Susan Humphris

Dear Knorr,

My name in Elizabeth Green and I'm in Mrs. Shields 7th grade science class in Lexington, MA. This question is for the Steward. How do you get fresh fruits and vegetables to your ship, if it is in the middle of the ocean? If they are fresh at the beginning of the trip, then they aren't fresh at the end. Thank you for taking the time to answer my question.

Thanks,
Elizabeth Green

Dear Elizabeth:

Once we leave port, we are unable to get supplies to the ship, so we have to be very organized and bring everything that we need.

Our Steward, Al Dalomba, buys fruit and vegetables when we are in port. We have cold storage on the ship so we can keep many of them for some time. However, things like lettuce, spinach, broccoli and bananas cannot be kept for long, so we enjoy them for about the first week of the cruise. Fortunately, this cruise is relatively short (17 days) so we will have some fresh vegetables and some apples for the whole cruise. On longer cruises, we often have frozen or canned vegetables towards the end of the cruise.

Thanks for Diving and Discovering!

Susan Humphris

Dear Oceanographic scientists,

I am a seventh grade student in Ms. Sheild's class, living in Lexington MA. I have currently been interested in your AUV's Puma and Jaguar, and my question is: If unpiloted, how are Puma and Jaguar programmed to come back to the ship when they are needed, and stop before hitting the ocean floor? Do they stop at a certain pressure level, or do they simply stop when they literally hit "rock bottom?" Finally, how do the AUV's know where to go, and not to wander off into some un-known sea?

With my best regards,

Alexander Ioakimidis

Dear Alexander:

Puma and Jaguar are programmed before they dive to avoid all the problems you have mentioned. They are given a depth to go to, and they can sense when they reach that depth because they have an instrument that measures pressure – and the pressure changes in the ocean by 1 atmosphere for each 10 meters of water depth. That way, they don’t crash into the bottom. They are given specific locations to drive to in order to carry out their mission, and they use a seafloor navigation system to determine where they are. That way, they don’t wander off. And they are told to return to the ship when their mission is finished, or when a certain amount of time has passed – whichever comes first.

Thanks for the question.

Susan Humphris

Dear Scientists,

I read the article on the different names of hydrothermal vents. I was wondering, does your team have an opportunity to discover a new hydrothermal vent, and, if so, what do you think you would name it?
Sincerely,

Marcus U.
Duxbury, MA

Dear Marcus;

We don’t know yet whether we will discover a hydrothermal vent, but we are hoping that is the case. In terms of naming it – we usually wait to see what the vent looks like before we name it. As you know from reading Dive and Discover, Lilliput vent field was so named because of all the tiny mussels there. If we find a vent, we will take a look at what it looks like and what is living there and then come up with a name.

Thanks for following our cruise.

Susan Humphris

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