Day 5 Science works best when we work as a team: Christian Halverson

Wandering around the Investigator makes you aware of how interlinked all the staff are. The vessel is owned by the Marine National Facility (MNF), which is a part of the CSIRO. Yet it is operated by ASP, a large shipping company that knows how to operate ships in the safest conditions. The captain, mates, engineers, electricians, deck crew and catering staff are all part of ASP, but the science support staff are MNF staff. One area of the science support is the Seagoing Instrumentation Team (SIT). These technicians work closely with the scientists and the ASP crew to build, maintain, set up, move around and operate some extraordinary pieces of technology.

One piece that caught my attention early was a large boxed camera array. It has lights/strobes, a robust frame, conductivity, depth and temperature loggers. It can also house other sensors depending upon what is needed. Twenty years ago, the camera arrays that could go to great depth could not get the images to the surface rapidly, as it was all linked by copper cable. Solid, heavy and reliable but slow. Today, all of the equipment that sends signals from the abyss does so via fibre optics, housed in steel cables for strength. This means that a SIT operator can work in the operations room with a handheld remote unit, like a heavy duty drone controller, to pilot the camera array to skim the ocean floor. Often, due to the darkness of the abyss and the marine snow that settles from above, visibility can be only a couple of metres, even with the strobes at full power. Using the camera we got to see the seafloor in all its extraordinary beauty with unusual fish and sea stars and other animals, but no plants at this depth.

The camera array is not all wildlife documentary clearness. Due to the low visibility, a large rock can appear quickly before you. It is important to react fast, or hundreds of thousands of dollars and many hours of work could crash into the rock. This is where the geophysics staff add their expertise. They read the sonar map, in real-time, to identify small dots that signify a much larger object. A quick tap on the shoulder, and the SIT operator is ready for the rock and draws the camera array up.

So where do the ASP’s crew come in? These talented men and women keep the ship on course and control the winch that draws up and holds the camera in place. They oversee the mechanical operation of the heavy equipment, getting the camera overboard and to the bottom of the ocean, potentially to a depth of six kilometres, then back up again.

Later in the voyage, we hope to find a ship wreck in the north of Australia. Though a camera may not be deployed, I would love to take a glance at a sad part of our maritime history.