Exploring the sea floor with ROVs and AUVs

Alejandro Hinojosa

CICESE

Norwegian Mapping Authority Visit

Hosting: Maritime Alliance San Dego Ca., January 16th 2014

CICESE

• Mexican government research center

• Located in Ensenada, Baja California 100km south of San Diego

• 41 years old

• One of its missions: do basic and applied research in ocean and earth sciences.

• Long time collaborations with SIO/Scripps, MBARI, WHOI,….

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CICESE

Participation in 3 Sea Floor Explorations in Mexican EEZ

Scripps Institution of Oceanography(SIO), UCSD•PI Peter Lonsdale

• 2008 ROCA (May 1-29), R/V Atlantis (WHOI) ROV Jason/Medea• 2012 WOBA(Oct 13-21), R/V Melville(SIO), ROV Gizmo(Triton)

Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)• PIs: Charles K. Paull, David A. Clague, David W. Caress, Hans

Thomas• 2012 (Spring) Two Ship expedition:

• R/V Western Flyer, ROV Doc Ricketts• R/V Zephyr, AUV (detail sea floor mapping)

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ROV and AUV dive sites in theGulf of California and West ofBaja California

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Control Van Jason/Medea

•Navigator •Engineer •Scientist •Arm Operator • Students: Log, DVDs•4hrs shifts•16-22 hrs durationNMA visit Exploring Sea Floor 7

Lower Delfin Basin, Gulf of CaliforniaROV tracks, depth in m

T4 in next slide

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Track 4 of ROV on Volcanic Knolls in Lower Delfin Basin, GC

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3D reconstruction from images of moving camera, massive point matching, photogrammetric techniques.

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Launching MBARI’s AUV from R/V Zephyr

AUV’s operation scheme•Multibeam bathymetry•Side scan •Bottom profiler

MBARI’s (AUV) on Zephyr R/V

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Doug Conlin,Jim Boedecker,Paul Ban

Rigorous mission planning for AUV, based on previous bathymetries. Programmed AUV path (50 m above gnd)

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Hydrothermal vents discovered in Alarcon rise by high resolution bathymetry from

MBARI’s AUV

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Hydrodrothermal chimneys discovered in Alarcon rise by high resolution bathymetry

from MBARI’s AUV (2012)

3-D visualization of the AUV's individual sonar soundings of the same area. This visualization is particularly effective for imaging the hydrothermal chimneys (Dave Caress, MBARI)

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Final Comments• Sea floor exploration is a 3D endeavor • Previous multibeam bathymetry is critical for

mission planning• ROV and AUV’s Log is the main source of

spatial (3D) and instrument data• Most of data collected is not GIS ready, it has to

be massaged • Collaborations and technology has enabled us

to explore and map the sea floor, the unexplored final frontier on Earth.

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Thanks for your attention

Alejandro Hinojosa

alhinc@cicese.mx18NMA visit Exploring Sea Floor