Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility

From February 10th to 17th, ROPOS was on-board the CCGS John P. Tully to assist the VENUS observatory team perform planned maintenance work and to help CHONe (Canadian Healthy Oceans Network) scientists investigate the exceptional marine biodiversity found in Saanich Inlet.

During the VENUS leg, ROPOS completed 10 dives in 6 days performing over 9 instrument deployments and recoveries. A notable achievement was the installation of a Seismic Liquefaction In-situ Piezometer (SLIP) to monitor the Fraser Delta slope. While the SLIP was deployed directly from the ship, ROPOS was tasked with its connection to a VENUS instrument platform (VIP) located approximately 1 kilometer away. Using a vehicle-mounted cable reel, the electro-optical cable was successfully laid directly on the seafloor as ROPOS navigated towards the VIP¹.

For the CHONe leg, ROPOS completed 3 dives in 24 hours and accomplished a variety of scientific goals such as: sediment cores, suction samples, and High-Definition video transects. During these dives, a new plankton nets sampling system was first used. Designed and built by the ROPOS team, the system allows the nets to be open and closed on command and for the volume of water filtered to be accurately estimated using a Doppler current meter that continually monitors the water velocity.

As an interesting note, on the last few days of the expedition, a production team from CBC’s The Nature of Things with David Suzuki came on-board to interview VENUS and CHONe scientists and to document the work done with ROPOS. We look forward to seeing the results of their work in an ocean themed episode next season.

 ¹Please note that ROPOS can also deploy much longer and larger cables using the ROCLS system.