Intellectual Merit: This project supports continued operation of an oceanographic facility (MISO) that makes deep-sea digital photographic equipment available to a wide spectrum of investigators who conduct geological, biological and chemical studies in the world's oceans. Equipment in the facility includes transponders, high-temperature vent fluid loggers, and camera and strobe equipment. This will be enhanced with the addition of a fiber optic camera that will allow the TowCam systems to provide equivalent sampling and CTD data functionality as well as near-real-time imaging capability up the cable. This new capability will be able to be deployed from large UNOLS ships equipped with a traction winch and fiber optic cable (e.g., Melville, Revelle, Atlantis, Knorr, Kilo Moana). A fee structure for the use of this instrumentation will remain consistent with past costs, and provides the necessary resources to ensure safe and successful use of the equipment. Broader Impacts: Broader impacts of the work are primarily in increasing and maintaining the infrastructure for research in the marine sciences. Equipment in the MISO facility has been used in research funded by the NSF RIDGE 2000 Program as well as a host of other scientific investigations. Images obtained by TowCam digital camera system have provided important visual products that have been used for public outreach to expose non-scientists to the excitement of deep sea research, as well as to engage students at many levels.
The WHOI TowCams within the MISO Facility are currently the only routinely available US systems for towed deep-sea digital imaging and short-term time-lapse imaging. The importance of digital seafloor photography for multidisciplinary science, including research that has been conducted at the three Ridge2000 (R2K) Integrated Study Sites (ISSs), and for general geological, chemical and biological oceanography is well documented in the various R2K program planning and site-specific. Over the past 5 years the WHOI-MISO Facility www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=13576 has provided an array of deep-sea imaging, temperature sensing and acoustic navigation equipment to a wide range of US and international researchers funded through NSF, USGS, NOAA and international research groups. A map showing the locations of TowCam related cruises and brief descriptions of the geographic locations and ships used is available at this URL: www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=17630 (Figure 1 and Table 1). MISO equipment has been used on over 25 cruises during the past 5 years as a result of this facility grant. There continues to be strong demand for the range of oceanographic equipment provided by MISO to the community. Table 1 shows the listing of all TowCam cruises that the MISO Facility at WHOI has supported over the past ~10 years. Normally, there are between 3-5 TowCam cruises supported each year with funding supplied from the science grants of the PIs. Funding agency support is primarily from NSF with lesser numbers of cruises supported by NOAA, USGS, institutional funding and foreign countries. The MISO Facility NSF grant has provided modest support to ensure broad access and functionality of this array of oceanographic equipment and its successful use and maintenance. The 5-year grant being reported on here also provided support in its first year to develop a fiber-optic TowCam camera. This work was carried out successfully and the fiber-optic camera has been used on several TowCam and ROV cruises conducted to date. Based on past and projected use, it is clear that the US oceanographic community will continue to need routine access to deep-sea digital imaging capabilities and the type of equipment provided by MISO into the future. Of particular note, in terms of the contributions that MISO and the TowCam systems have made to science during the course of this grant several results are important to mention. TowCam systems have played an important role in the discovery and mapping of recent volcanic eruptions at the East Pacific Rise 9° 50’N (2006) and W. Mata seamount in the Lau Basin (2010). TowCam has been used on numerous cruises to augment data acquisition on both traditional cruises where other programs were being conducted (i.e., dredging and underway geophysics) as well as deep-submergence vehicle related cruises where Alvin, Jason 2 ROV or Sentry AUVs were being utilized. TowCam (Figure 2) has proven to be a very worthwhile and cost-effective system for greatly expanding science capabilities and data collection on a wide range of oceanographic research cruises. Finally, TowCam and the MISO time-lapse deep-sea camera played an important role in documenting the impacts of oil on deep-water coral communities in the Gulf of Mexico on several cruises in 2011, following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in Dec. 2010 (Figure 3). TowCam data have played an important role in supporting numerous PhD and MS theses, as well as senior undergraduate thesis projects at the following institutions: WHOI, Colgate U. U. Florida, U. South Carolina, Duke University, SUNY-Buffalo, U. Hawaii, U. Washington. Finally, as an example of the type of undergraduate educational experiences that TowCam data have provided, a URL is provided below that links to the Hydrate Ridge Biota (TowCam) photo website that Stephen Long put together, using images from INSITE ‘08. It is a gallery of the biota photographed at each of the TowCam survey sites (scroll down on the home page to see the sites). It is organized by site, then by Phylum. An example of each species observed is shown for each tow. The site is also useful for semi-quantitative analysis, as you can "view all" of the image for each taxon. http://oceanica.cofc.edu/RSN-OOI/HydrateRidge/HydrateRidgeBiotaWebsite/
