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• Community of Deep Submergence Investigators - The robust, challenging, fundamental and 

 exciting nature of research in the global abyss has created a large community of scholars in the 

 biological, chemical, geological/geophysical and engineering sciences. These investigators are 

 largely distributed throughout the U.S. university community with the greatest concentration of 

 investigators found at institutions with an emphasis in the oceanographic sciences. Important 

 centere of innovative technological scientific expertise are located at private marine centers such as 

 Harbor Branch, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). as well as in industry. 

 The exciting namre of deep submergence science attracts many of the very best graduate students to 

 a broad range of thesis topics in this field. It is probably fair to say that the growth in deep 

 submergence science is not so much restrained, as it is hobbled, by a lack of resources (i.e. the 

 number of deep submergence assets and access to these assets). 



• Technological Assets: Gateways To The Abyss - For U.S. scientists, manned presence in the deep 

 sea (> 1000m) over the last twenty years has been provided by the submersible ALVIN (4000m 

 limit), operated by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOD as a National Facility that is 

 funded ioinUy by ONR. NOAA and NSF. and to a much lesser extent by the U.S. Navy 

 submersibles SEA CLIFF (6000m limit) and TURTLE (3000m limit). Access to deep inner space 

 has been very effective, providing a cognitive presence and an ability to carry out manipulative and 

 interactive experiments. Indeed, our knowledge of the abyss is largely constrained by over two 

 decades of successful submersible operations (e.g. ALVIN has made in excess of 2000 dives). In 

 the past, the two submersibles of the U.S. Navy have been available to scientists for a limited time 

 each year, but the unreliability of these assets has seriously compromised their usefulness. 

 Recently. NURP has worked with the Navy to improve this situation, holding out the possibility 

 that U.S. scientists can use SEA CLIFF effectively in the future and take advantage of its capability 

 to reach 6000m. A 20(X)m increase in depth capabiUty aUows an investigator to reach approximately 

 98% of the abyss as opposed to 42% with a 4000m capability. Manned presence in the abyss. 

 however, does have limitations imposed by creating the necessary life support systems (i.e. bulky 

 sphere, limited bottom time, large time and labor commitment to safety). Recently, technological 

 innovations of ROVs developed over the last two decades to serve industrial and scientific needs in 

 shallow water have been hardened for use in the hostile environments of the deep abyss. ROV 

 systems in different states of development exist at WHOI. MBARI and Scripps Institution of 

 Oceanography. These systems are just coming on line and offer a tremendous new investigative 

 methodology that nicely complements, and greatly enhances, our existing potential to carry out 

 investigations in the abyss and on the abyssal floor. Given the geographic and intellectual scale of 

 the scientific problems to be answered and the discoveries to be made in the ocean's inner space, it 

 is clear that ROVs will play a pivotal role in the next chapter of investigation. In the academic 

 community. AUVs are still very much in the developmental stages, but they have a great potential to 

 augment and extend our ability to conduct research in the deep sea. 



• Deep Submergence Facilities: A Key Component To Success - The successful and routine 

 implementation of experiments in the hostile environment of inner space, whether it be manned 

 submersibles or ROVs. is dependent on teams of experts, scientists and engineers that are 

 responsible for equipment maintenance and development. These teams take time to develop and 

 represent valuable resources that must be maintained in a coherent fashion if our ability to carry out 

 state of the art investigations in the deep sea is to continue. In order to maintain a reliable deep 

 submergence asset that meets the needs of the scientific questions being addressed, a robust 

 infrastmcture must be in place that insures continuity over the long term. This need was recognized 

 almost two decades ago when ONR. NOAA and NSF entered into an interagency agreement to 

 cieate a National Deep Submergence Facility at WHOI. assuring that the submersible ALVIN would 

 be available for civilian scientific purposes. This interagency agreement has been remarkably 

 successful and has remained in place to the present, although the language of the agreement has just 

 been expanded to include the newly developed JASON-MEDEA ROV system. Outside of this 

 framework, and supported in a variety of ways, there are a few other centers of deep submergence 



