Classical methods of observing the ocean fail to fit  the sampling requirements that are naturally imposed by the temporal and spatial scales of these phenomena.

One of the main goals at Axial Volcano in 2002 was to install an upgraded NeMO Net system. NeMO Net is a state-of-the-art communication system that links desktop computers on land to instruments on the seafloor. A surface buoy is the heart of the system, which communicates with shore by satellite and to the seafloor via an acoustic link. We have been incrementally developing the capabilities of NeMO Net over the last 3 years, starting with one-way communication from a single camera, to this year's system which has two-way communication with three independent instruments on the seafloor. The 3 instruments include two interactive fluid samplers (called RAS's) and one bottom pressure recorder (BPR). The whole idea of NeMO Net is to be able to get information from the seafloor in order to be able to know when a volcanic event is occurring at Axial Volcano and then be able to respond to such an event immediately, without having to wait until a ship can get out to the site.

John Orcutt (Scripps), Co-Chair

Adam Schultz (Cambridge), Co-Chair

Jeremy Bloxham (Harvard)

Rhett Butler (IRIS)

John Collins (WHOI)

Robert Detrick (WHOI)

Kang Ding (Minnesota)

Adam Dziewonski (Harvard)

Gary Egbert (Oregon State)

Marcia McNutt (MBARI)

Barbara Romanowicz (Berkeley)

Sean Solomon (DTM/Carnegie)

Mark Zumberge (Scripps)

Today, many fundamental scientific questions in the ocean sciences require

the measurement of variations in physical, chemical, biological and geological

processes on time scales ranging from seconds to decades, as well as a synoptic

characterization of the these processes on a global scale. This has highlighted the

need for "seafloor ocean observatories" with sensors in the water column, and on

or beneath the seafloor.

Observatory-type studies on a planetary scale offer a number of important

scientific opportunities. Large gaps exist in the global network of seismic

stations that cannot be filled with island stations, particularly in the eastern

Pacific and Southern Oceans. Improved spatial sampling provided by long term,

broadband seismic stations at ~20 ocean sites would provide much improved

tomographic imaging of the structure of the lower mantle (especially in the

Southern Hemisphere), the core-mantle boundary, and the role of subducting

Jean-Louis Michel,
Michaël Klages
Fernando J. A. S. Barriga,
Yves Fouquet,
Myriam Sibuet, Pierre-Marie Sarradin,
Patrick Siméoni, Jean-François Drogou

Following the needs of a widening community of end users the modular deep Remotely Operated Vehicle Victor 6000 of the Institut Français d’Exploitation de la Mer, Ifremer, is evolving using new technologies. A deep record dive at high latitude (79°north) was reached in the Molloy Deep at 5550 metres in 1999. The performance obtained till 2002 during 2600 hours of work/survey near the seafloor are contributing significantly to the observation and the monitoring of the deep benthic ecosystems in various environments of the midoceanic ridges and the continental margins.