News
Three Week Voyage Explores Depths Of Coral Sea
By Matt J. Weiss, December 1, 2009 @ 02:23 PM (EST)
A team 15 scientists have embarked on a three week long, $500,000, voyage exploring the depths of Australia's Coral Sea.
The project is called Deep Down Under and it will be utilizing a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) called "Cherokee" to search for life that was previously thought to be extinct, and only known through fossil records.
Animals they hope to find include, Nautilus, cold water corals, and various others mollusks and echinoderms.
Some members of the team discovered species in the area in the mid 1990's that were previously thought to be extinct, but could not explore the area further until now.
Specimens will be collected by the ROV which is the size of a small car and is equipped with moveable arms with claws and a camera that will give live video feeds.
The expedition will explore the deep waters around Flinders, Holmes, Bougainville and Osprey Reef before docking in Cairns three weeks from now. The specimens will be brought to the Queensland Museum to be studied further.
A nice feature of the expedition is that we can follow along live on their multilingual blog.
The project is called Deep Down Under and it will be utilizing a Remote Operated Vehicle (ROV) called "Cherokee" to search for life that was previously thought to be extinct, and only known through fossil records.
Animals they hope to find include, Nautilus, cold water corals, and various others mollusks and echinoderms.
Some members of the team discovered species in the area in the mid 1990's that were previously thought to be extinct, but could not explore the area further until now.
Specimens will be collected by the ROV which is the size of a small car and is equipped with moveable arms with claws and a camera that will give live video feeds.
The expedition will explore the deep waters around Flinders, Holmes, Bougainville and Osprey Reef before docking in Cairns three weeks from now. The specimens will be brought to the Queensland Museum to be studied further.
A nice feature of the expedition is that we can follow along live on their multilingual blog.
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