DRAFT – Revised June 18, 2008

DEEP SUBMERGENCE SCIENCE COMMITTEE

Annual Planning Meeting

Sunday, December 9, 2007

The Whitcomb Hotel
1231 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

A copy of these minutes is available as a pdf document: <200712desmi.pdf>.

Executive Summary:

The Deep Submergence Science Committee (DESSC) met on December 9, 2007 at the Whitcomb Hotel in San Francisco, CA.  The meeting was chaired by Debbie Kelley and began with presentations by the Principal Investigators who used submergence vehicles in 2007.  Funding agency representatives provided budget information as well as agency priorities.  A variety of reports were made by the National Deep Submergence Facility (NDSF) operator to summarize facility operations, planned activities, and system upgrades.  Reports on the status of design, development, and construction of the AUV Sentry, the replacement HOV and the hybrid ROV were provided.  DESSC activities, future plans and issues were reported including discussions on long-range planning and educational activities.

Summary of Action Items:

New Action Items:

1. DESSC Phone Meeting – Schedule a DESSC phone meeting in early 2008. Discussion items will include NDSF vehicle operation/exclusion limits, bringing Sentry into the facility, and other action items requiring DESSC attention.

2. HDTV Upgrade Plan - Bill Lange has requested DESSC endorsement of an HDTV upgrade for Alvin and Jason in 2008.   A quick response is needed.

3. Archive Video – DESSC will be asked for a recommendation regarding whether the science party should be required to provide personnel to run Jason DVD decks for archive video (even if they don't intend to use DVDs).

4. Magnetometer - DESSC was asked for a recommendation regarding whether the magnetometer should be a standard sensor for all vehicles. If so, should there be a requirement for calibration turns for each dive/lowering. Mag data are useless if they are collected without calibration turns (Alvin does this naturally, Jason takes an extra 45 minutes per dive).  Should Jason users be required to conduct this calibration, considering the cost of dive time?

5. Forums and Format of future DESSC Meetings – DESSC discussion is needed on future DESSC meeting agendas/formats, as well as, locations/forums.

6. DESSC Membership – Review nominations for two candidates and vote by email.

7. Future Role of merged NURP and OE – Form a subcommittee to prepare a DESSC statement regarding the future role of the merged NURP and OE programs.

Continuing Action Items:

8. Pilot Retention and Career Advancement –DESSC recommends that WHOI prepare a document that articulates the institution’s strategies for pilot retention as well as procedures for implementing exit interviews for those pilots who resign. DESSC recommends that WHOI management promote learning opportunities and career advancement opportunities for pilots.

9. Mode of Operation for Jason Watches – DESSC recommends that WHOI explore options for staggering the start and end times for Jason watches with the goal of achieving better continuity through a dive cycle.

10. OOI/DESSC Liaison – Deb Kelley will contact Holly Givens in the OOI office to establish a liaison process between OOI and DESSC.

11. Science Outfitting Survey for the Replacement HOV – At the appropriate time, develop a community on-line survey and circulate it to the community.

12. Science Training Opportunities for Pilots – DESSC, WHOI and agency representatives should discuss the feasibility of conducting workshop/training science sessions for pilots. The session(s) should demonstrate how the data from the vehicles are used for different research disciplines.

13. R2K Lectureship program – DESSC recommends that the R2K Lectureship program include an Alvin or ROV pilot as a distinguished lecturer. (Kelley)

DESSC Recommendations:

Day rate of NDSF Vehicles – DESSC recommends that the AUV have a separate day rate from that of Alvin/Jason.

Appendices:

I	Agenda
II	Participant List
III	2007 Alvin PI Reports (4.2 MB)
IV	2007 Jason PI Reports (4.8 MB)
V	2007 ABE PI Reports (1.6 MB)
VI	2007 Pisces PI Report (5.9 MB)
VII	2007 ROPOS PI Report
VIII	NOAA Report
IX	Okeanos Explorer Update
X	NASA Report (1.5 MB)
XI	NDSF Personnel Changes and Organization Chart
XII	NDSF Vehicle Operations Summary
XIII	NDSF Data Manager Report
XIV	Jason Control Van
XV	NDSF-wide Navigation Update
XVI	NDSF-wide Imaging Update (3.5 MB)
XVII	AUV Sentry Update
XVIII	Summary of Jason User Debrief Interviews
XIX	Jason Proposed Corrective Actions
XX	Summary of Alvin User Debrief Interviews
XXI	Alvin Proposed Corrective Actions
XXII	NDSF Scheduling: 2008 and Beyond (1.3 MB)
XXIII	UNOLS Report
XXIV	Replacement HOV Update
XXV	DSL-120 and IMI-30 Systems (5.7 MB)
XXVI	HURL Vehicle Update (3.6 MB)
XXVII	MATE Report (4.2 MB)
XXVIII	Hybrid ROV Status Report (3.7 MB)

Meeting Summary Report:

Introductory Remarks, Meeting Logistics, and Introductions - Deb Kelley, Deep Submergence Science Committee (DESSC) Chair, called the meeting to order at 0830 on Sunday, December 9, 2007. The meeting was held at the Whitcomb Hotel in San Francisco, CA. The agenda for the meeting is included as Appendix I. The items of the agenda are reported in the order addressed. The list of attendees is included as Appendix II.

2007 Principle Investigator (PI) Reports - Deb Kelley moderated the science report session of the meeting and provided introductions of the PIs who used the NDSF and other deep submergence vehicles in 2007. Some of the issues raised during the PI reports were addressed later in the meeting by the NDSF operators during the afternoon debrief presentations.

Alvin PI Reports – PI reports for Alvin cruises in 2007 are summarized below. All of the presentations are included in Appendix III.

Richard Lutz, Tim Shank, Costantino Vetraini, and George Luther - Jan 10 – Feb 5, 2007 – George Luther provided the report on their Alvin cruise titled, “

Integrated Studies of Biological Community Structure at Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents.” They carried out integrative bio-chem-micro colonization experiments over 22 Alvin dives. It was a full cruise and operations included:

· High-definition and Imagenex imaging.

· They constructed/utilized the “Fish-Slurp” suction sampler,

· Near-bottom magnetics from Alvin

· Time-lapse camera imaging

· McLane^TM large-volume water pump (4 deployments)

· Tide Gauge (2 deployments)

· Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD; 3 surveys)

· Ocean Bottom Seismometer (OBS; 9 of 11 recovered)

· Towed-camera system (12 surveys) (Soule et al., 2007)

A Lexington Middle School teacher and an Education and Outreach coordinator from the Ridge 2000 program participated in the cruise activities and provided daily teacher’s log, images, video and essays, posted on the RIDGE2000 SEAS website.

A partnership with GLOBE via R2K’s FLEXE program was initiated.

GLOBE is a large-scale, web-based, international science education program that joins students, teachers and scientists in studying Earth Systems Science, GLOBE (http://www.globe.gov/). R2K’s program FLEXE: From Local to EXtreme Environments, features coordinated student-scientist interactions. A unique event during the cruise was the

NASA phone call from Alvin at depth to the International Space Station with a live feed answering questions from more than 40 elementary schools.

National Geographic magazine photographer documented the research for a future publication. The high-definition video collected during the cruise is to be distributed to museums and aquariums.

Raymond Lee, Wash St. U and Peter Girguis, Harvard U. - Aug 26 – Sep 6, 2007 – Raymond Lee provided the report on his Alvin cruise titled, “Thermal biology of vent paralvinellids.” Other participants included L. Levin, SIO; M. Lilley, U Wash; W. Ziebis, USC; K Halanych, Auburn; and P. Yancey, Whitman College. The cruise included ten NSF funded Alvin dives. This was year 1 of a 3-year project.

Their dive area was in Canadian waters and the Canadian clearance was late, which resulted in loosing 1.5 days of diving. Some of the operations carried out during the cruise included:

· Suction sampling of biology with new sampler

· Pressurized incubations of animals on board ship

· Recovery/deployment of the Kelley/Girguis microbial incubators

· Deployment of whale bone settlement experiments

· Pushcores at Middle Valley

· Girguis/Cordes tubeworm sampling with Chuck Fisher’s Bushmaster

· Peter Girguis carried out in situ mass spectrometer experiments

Ray commented that the new suction sampler on Alvin worked beautifully. He would like to have more chambers added the sampler.

David Valentine – July 13-17, 2007 – Monica Heinz provided the report for David. David’s Alvin cruise was titled, “SEEPS ‘07 (Studies of the Ecology and Evolution of Petroleum Seeps).” Accomplishments included:

i) Comparison of CH4 oxidation rates in seeps ranging in depth from 80m to 800m.*

ii) Discovery and sampling of 2 extinct asphault volcanoes.

iii) Quantified depth distributions of CH4 turnover and methanotroph identity at dozens of sites along southern California margin.

iv) Testing, validation and intercomparison of in-situ mass spectrometers to depths greater than 1500m.

v) Testing of novel pore water equilibration samplers.

vi) Comparison of microbial mat communities from several distinct seep environments.

vii) Participation and training for 14 undergraduate and 7 graduate students.

Curt Collins - Sep 30 – Oct 6, 2007 - Deb presented Curt’s slides on his Alvin cruise titled, “Hoke Seamount Mooring Recovery.” On the Alvin/Atlantis transit from Aberdeen, WA to San Diego, CA. a stop was made at Hoke Seamount. The dive party included Pat Hickey- Senior Pilot; Marla Stone, NPS; and Chris Miller, NPS. The cruise/research objectives were to conduct a Sea Beam survey of Hoke Seamount prior to the Alvin dive and then recover a mooring using Alvin. The mooring had been deployed in Oct 2002 and then lost. A recovery was attempted in Oct 2004, but the swage socket failed and the instruments fell to bottom in 800m. During Curt’s cruise, the deployed mooring could not be located during descent and the dive time was curtailed by weather. They were able to estimate the approximate mooring location during ascent using sonar.

Keir Becker - Sep 11-28, 2007 – Keir’s cruise included Alvin operations at Juan de Fuca Ridge. There were 12 dives, 8 dives for routine data downloads and instrument servicing at seven CORK observatories and 4 dives for remedial wellhead cementing at 1301A/B CORKs. The cruise also included a 3-dive program for Di Iorio that included a survey, and acoustic mooring recovery and redeployment at Dante on Endeavour axis. The cruise experienced weather issues. They lost 5 of 15 scheduled dive days, mainly to weather. Is mid- to late-September a viable scheduling window at Juan de Fuca?

Jason/DSL-120 PI Reports: The Jason and DSL-120 PI reports are included as Appendix IV.

Emily Klein, Scott White, and Dan Fornari - Mar 24 – April 27, 2007 – The research area was 9N OSC and included a DSL-120A survey, Jason operations, and Tow Cam operations. The survey was carried out over six days and covered 235 km². There were four Jason lowerings over 16 days, with 213 video hours collected, and over 30,000 van records logged. One new hydrothermal vent was discovered and 282 rock samples were collected. The cruise also included an EPR-ISS benchmark survey. Four permanent benchmarks were installed, two of three OBS’ were rescued and a tiltmeter was rescued.

Scott White reported that for the first time the SM2000 and DSL120A worked well together. Bathymetry processing was done post-cruise, and was not a smooth process. Paying out or pulling in wire on the DSL120A causes the vehicle to pitch, and disturbs the magnetometer. Towcam was very useful in combination with Jason. They appreciated the improved event logger on Jason.

Chuck Fisher – June 4 – July 6, 2007 - Deb presented Chuck’s slides. The slides provide highlights of the Jason operations from the NOAA Ship, Ron Brown, titled, “Investigations of chemosynthetic communities on the lower continental slope of the Gulf of Mexico.” The project was funded jointly by the Mineral Management Service and the NOAA Ocean Exploration Program. PIs included James Brooks and Bernie Bernard (TDI Brooks Int.), Robert Carney and Harry Roberts (LSU), Erik Cordes and Peter Girguis (Harvard), Charles Fisher (PSU), Ian MacDonald (TAMU), and Samantha Joye (UGA).

The R/V Ron Brown was spacious, stable, and fully capable for Jason operations. The overall goal of the cruise was to ground truth their techniques to discover new sites with significant chemosynthetic or coral communities, characterize the new sites and communities, and continue process oriented studies designed to understand the forces that lead to the establishment of cold seep communities and the differences among them. Five new sites were discovered using Jason. The cruise highlights included:

· Fast processing, turnaround and use of SM 2000 data collected at sea.

· Efficient exploration of new sites, visiting up to 10 geophysical targets spread over several km during single lowerings (and discovery of macrofaunal communities during every lowering to a new site)

· Discovery of Active mud volcano and Asphalt seep

· Re-imaging of tubeworms banded for growth studies using Alvin in 1992.

· Discovery and characterization of new type of oil seep community: heart urchins

· Extensive efficient use of elevators.

One constraint on the cruise was the safe air weight payload limitations of Jason. This can limit multifunctional payloads, including biological collections into temperature insulated containers because of the weight of water. Also, current limitations virtually prohibit the use of the 5-chamber suction sampler with most other equipment because of its air weight. Repeat users should expect diminished payload capacity compared to pre-2007 cruises.

Anthony E. Rathburn – July 22-29, 2007 - Deb presented the cruise report. The cruise objective was to use Jason to collect samples from methane seep habitats and nearby environments to determine the relationships between the biology, ecology and isotopic characteristics of benthic foraminifera and ambient geochemistry. The goal was to determine why the carbon isotopic values of calcareous foraminifera are out of equilibrium with ambient pore water.

Numerous seafloor core samples were collected using elevator deployments/recoveries. They took professional HD and 3-D video of operations. They also successfully re-engineered and manipulated injector cores to conduct in situ incubations on the seafloor. The ship operations, Jason operations, logistics, and technical assistance were all excellent and contributed to the success of the cruise. However, the

8-12 hour turnaround time for Jason is a major concern for deep-water operations and for multiple deployments on a short cruise.

At sites of several thousand meters, researchers are not typically able to use an elevator, necessitating multiple deployments of Jason. When diving in deeper water, the elevator couldn't be used because it could drift too far from the ship on its way to the surface.  Adding 8-12 hrs to a proposal for each planned ROV deployment is very costly in terms of underutilized ship time.

Bill Chadwick - August 3-20, 2007 – Bill reported on his NeMO 2007 cruise on Atlantis that used Jason and the MBARI AUV. The Jason operations included work at Endeavour (2 dives), Axial (6 dives), and Cobb (2 dives). The AUV was used during 2 dives at Axial. The science operations included fluid & bio sampling, pressure measurements, BPR & OBH moorings, RAS, MTRs & HOBOs, CTDs, and geologic surveys. They were very happy with the HDTV imaging obtained using Jason. Two new vent sites were discovered at Cobb.

Beecher Wooding and John Collins - Oct 31 – Nov 10, 2007 – Beecher Wooding (WHOI) was the Chief Scientist for the fall OBS rescue cruise aboard R/V Kilo Moana with Jason. Thirteen OBS’ had been lost on PLUME 1 (3) and PLUME 2 (10). The cruise goal was to learn why OBS were not recovered by the normal acoustic means and if the OBS have a fundamental design flaw. Glass ball implosions were responsible for non-recovery at 5 of the 8 sites visited. One OBS had pre-released and two OBS are likely stuck in soft mud. The overall assessment of Deep Submergence Lab’s (DSL) performance was excellent. DSL’s ability to navigate the ship during the vehicle descent was fantastic. The instruments were commonly sighted as soon as the bottom was. In cases where searches were required, the aerial coverage was maximized and time was minimized. They had hoped to visit six instrument sites, and were able to actually visit 8. The increase was due almost entirely to DSL’s ability to quickly locate the lost instruments. Suggestions for modest, purpose-built hardware that would improve the capability of Jason to salvage OBS has been forwarded to DSL.

ABE PI Reports: The ABE PI reports are included as Appendix V.

Bob Embley - 29 July – 16 August, 2007 – Dana Yoerger reported on the ABE cruise aboard R/V Sonne. The title of the project was, “Preliminary Results of a Near-Bottom Integrated Seafloor and Water Column survey of Brothers volcano, Kermadec arc, using the Autonomous Vehicle ABE.” The program was carried out jointly with NOAA OE and New Zealand GNS Science funding, and joint with the GEOMAR ROV test cruise. The primary objective was to map the caldera of Brothers volcano, one of the most hydrothermally active arc volcanoes found to date. ABE made 7 long dives and mapped most of Brother’s caldera. They found that there are good correlations between morphology, hydrothermal activity and magnetic lows. ABE’s bottom tracking capability is unique in being able to survey complex terrain such as steep caldera walls. The PIs were very pleased with results. ABE track-lines were based on EM300 contours, which helped ABE do bottom tracking.  ABE also carried an eH sensor at the hydrothermal sites (in addition to measuring temp, magnetization).

Chris German - Feb 19-Mar 11, 2007 – Chris reported that during his cruise they made the first discovery of high-temperature venting on an ultra-slow ridge (SWIR) using ABE. They observed the animals that live on the SW Indian ridge. Chris commented that there was a very quick turn-around period in generating the bathymetry maps.

Other Facility User Reports:

Pisces – Rob Dunbar: Rob reported on his cruise to study deep sea corals using the submersible Pisces. His slides are included at Appendix VI. Co-PIs on Rob’s Pisces cruise were Brendan Roark and Tom Guilderson. Rob commented that the Pisces vehicle is very good at recognizance and it has a lot of power. The title of his study is, “Deep Sea Corals – Long-lived Recorders of Ocean Climate.” Corals have extreme longevity; colonies can be 1000’s of year old and offer information on ocean circulation, ventilation, productivity. The November 2007 Pisces dives were off of Hawaii on Brooks Bank. Robs slides include images of corals from previous studies. The sampling included live, subfossil, and fossil corals. Some specimens might be in excess of 10,000 years old. The