European Seafloor Observatory Offers New Possibilities For Deep Sea Study

Abstract

The Geophysical and Oceanographic Station for Abyssal Research (GEOSTAR), an autonomous seafloor observatory that collects measurements benefiting a number of disciplines during missions up to 1 year long, will begin the second phase of its first mission in 2000. The 6-8 month investigation will take place at a depth of 3400 m in the southern Tyrrhenian basin of the southern Tyrrhenian basin of the central Mediterranean. GEOSTAR was funded by the European Community (EC) for $2.4 million (U.S. dollars) in 1995 as a part of the Marine Science and Technology programme (MAST). The innovative deployment and recovery procedure GEOSTAR uses was derived from the "two-module" concept successfully applied by NASA in the Apollo and space shuttle missions, where one module performs tasks for the other, including deployment, switching on and off, performing checks and recovery. The observatory communication system, which takes advantage of satellite telemetry, and the simultaneous acquisition of a set of various measurements with a unique time reference make GEOSTAR the first fundamental element of a multiparameter ocean network. GEOSTAR's first scientific and technological mission, which took place in the summer of 1998 in the Adriatic Sea, verified the performance and reliability of the system. The mission was a success. providing 440 hours of continuous seismic magnetic and oceanographic data. Thje second phase of the mission, which was funded by the EC for $2 million (US dollars), will carry equipment for chemical, biological and isotopic analyses not used in the first phase, which will broaden the data collection effort.