The latest photos from the wharf: Investigator is looking fantastic!
Posted: November 29, 2012 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentThese latest images from the wharf area, where RV Investigator is being assembled, show the extent of the recent progress.
The accommodation blocks look great!
Posted: November 28, 2012 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project 1 CommentA number of the superstructure blocks have been fully completed and are now waiting to be lifted into place at the Investigator Erection Area.
The amazing drop keels are fitted to RV Investigator
Posted: November 27, 2012 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project 1 CommentWork on the drop keels has been completed in the shed. These amazing scientific components of the ship have been moved to the wharf area and lifted and fitted into RV Investigator.
Check out these amazing photos.
ECOS Magazine published an article about the scientific capabilities of RV Investigator. It’s a great read as it describes the hull, drop keel and the gondola designs and capabilities.
The article was written by our very own Dr Brian Griffiths, who is a member of the Future Research Vessel Project Team, and Michele Sabto from ECOS Magazine.
Here’s the section on the drop keels.
Drop keels
Another unique feature of this vessel is a couple of drop keels that contain an array of scientific instruments. The keels are about 1.3 metres wide by about 3.6 metres long – the scale of an aircraft wing – and are kept inside a tube in the ship. They can be lowered down to about 4 metres below the hull, putting the acoustic equipment inside them well below the bubble zone as the vessel goes through the water.
Seawater inlets on the keel undersides allow scientists to collect uncontaminated seawater samples.
Other instruments mounted in, or on, the keels can:
- measure the speed, direction and depth of currents – understanding current speed and direction is key to understanding the transport of heat in oceans
- indicate fish abundance and size
- detect fish schools and individual fish, giving location and depth relative to the vessel as it moves through the water
- measure the velocity of sound in water – sound velocity affects depth calculations
- measure the width and height of scientific trawl net carried behind RV Investigator – the net can be up to 4 kilometres deep and 6 kilometres long. Knowing how the size of the net mouth opening changes it moves through the water helps calculate abundance estimates for trawl catches, and improves understanding of the general behaviour of trawl nets
- provide data on the position of instruments towed by or moored to the ship, increasing the spatial accuracy and precision of measurements.
The original article can be found here http://www.ecosmagazine.com/?paper=EC12330
Un-discovering Sandy Island onboard Southern Surveyor
Posted: November 23, 2012 Filed under: Marine National Facility, RV Southern Surveyor 1 CommentHow can you un-discover something?
Well that’s what journalists around the world are calling the discovery by the scientists onboard Australia’s Marine National Facility research vessel, Southern Surveyor.
At the outer limits of the Coral Sea, some of the maps the scientists were using showed a 26 kilometre long island, which was identified on the maps as Sandy Island. However, when Southern Surveyor arrived at the location, there was no island to be found. You can read more about the discovery in the media release below.
Here’s some of the global coverage of the un-discovery by Chief Scientist Dr Maria Seton from the University of Sydney onboard Southern Surveyor:
http://www.channel4.com/news/scientists-discover-sandy-island-doesnt-exist
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-22/australian-scientists-un-discover-pacific-island/4387012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20442487
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/11/22/sci-south-pacific-island-missing.html
Here are some more images from the voyage:
THIS MEDIA RELEASE WAS ISSUED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY ON 23 NOVEMBER 2012 REGARDING THE RESEARCH VOYAGE:
When is an island not an island?
In a reversal of the centuries-old tradition of explorers undertaking ocean voyages of discovery with the hope of finding new land, a scientific party has done the complete opposite.
A team of Australian and international scientists led by the University of Sydney has solved a mystery regarding the existence of a supposed island in the Southwest Pacific.
The detective work took place on the RV Southern Surveyor, Australia’s Marine National Facility research vessel during a research voyage aimed at understanding the tectonic evolution of the eastern Coral Sea.
“We became suspicious when the navigation charts used by the ship showed a depth of 1400 metres in an area where our scientific maps and Google Earth showed the existence of a large island,” said chief scientist Dr Maria Seton from the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney.
The maps that the scientists were using are based on a combination of the CIA World Data Bank and the World Vector Shoreline Database. Even Google Earth shows a black blob in the area of the mythical island.
The rogue island has regularly appeared in scientific publications since at least the year 2000.
“So we decided to solve this modern day mythical island mystery. We found the navigational charts were accurate and there was no island in the area, so global maps including Google Earth need to be corrected.”
Dr Steven Micklethwaite from the University of Western Australia said, “We all had a good giggle at Google as we sailed through the island, then we started compiling information about the seafloor, which we will send to the relevant authorities so that we can change the world map.”
As well as mythbusting the existence of islands, the team have been collecting submarine data and rock samples from a little-explored part of the eastern Coral Sea. After 25 days at sea, they have collected 197 different rock samples, collected over 6800 kilometres of marine geophysical data and mapped over 14,000 square kilometres of the ocean floor.
Not only did they uncover rocks formed around 100 million years ago as Australia, Antarctica and New Zealand broke apart, but they also found extensive limestone samples at 3000 metres below the waves, revealing a massive drowning of the region over time.
The original copy can be found on the University of Sydney’s website: http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=10619&utm_source=console&utm_medium=news&utm_campaign=cws
Wiring the ship from the engines to the bridge
Posted: November 22, 2012 Filed under: Home, Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentWork has started on what’s called ‘cable pulling’, where the wiring for the ship is threaded and pulled through the ship.
The thick black wiring is the mains power cable for RV Investigator, which will run from one end of the ship to the other.
A ship tour, a LEGO® Investigator and meeting amazing scientists. What a great prize!
Posted: November 21, 2012 Filed under: Investigator, Marine National Facility, RV Southern Surveyor, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentThree years ago 10-year-old Clare Cameron won a national competition to name Australia’s new Marine National Facility (MNF) research vessel. Clare’s entry, The Flinders Investigator, was the joint winner – the new ship has been named Investigator.
Clare Cameron and her family toured the current MNF vessel, Southern Surveyor, met the scientists who’d returned from a research voyage to the Coral Sea and was presented with a LEGO® Investigator.
Queensland’s national ship-naming competition winner to tour Australia’s Marine National Facility
Posted: November 20, 2012 Filed under: Investigator, Marine National Facility, Media Releases, RV Southern Surveyor, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentNearly three years ago a 10-year-old Queensland primary school student beat the rush of entries in a national competition, to find a name for Australia’s new Marine National Facility research vessel.
The Federal Minister for Science deemed Clare Cameron’s entry, The Flinders Investigator, the joint winner, as it linked the planned $120 million research vessel, to Australia’s maritime history – Matthew Flinders first circumnavigated the continent in His Majesty’s sloop, Investigator.
The new state-of-the-art 93.9 metre vessel has been named, Investigator and is under construction. The vessel will herald a new era in marine and atmospheric research for Australian scientists when it arrives in late 2013.
The new vessel provides a huge leap forward in capability, as the current research vessel, Southern Surveyor, can accommodate 15 scientists and travel up to 28 days at sea, while Investigator will accommodate 40 scientists and travel for up to 60 days.
While Southern Surveyor is in Brisbane for a short port period, prior to its next research voyage, we have invited Clare Cameron and her family, who live in Runaway Bay, to tour the ship and meet the team of Australian and international scientists, who will have returned from their research voyage in the Coral Sea.
The Chief Scientist onboard, Dr Maria Seton, from the School of Geosciences at the University of Sydney, and her team have been working in a little explored region between the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia, taking rock samples from the ridges and plateaus at depths of up to 3.5 km. They have also mapped about 8000 kilometres of seafloor under their voyage track and taken gravity and magnetic data.
“This data will help us to better understand the type of crust that underlies the region, and the age of these basins, and will give us a more complete geologic and tectonic history of the area during the last one hundred million years,” Dr Maria Seton said.
“We are trying to understand what’s going on in this part of the world, by mapping what we call hotspots, which are a series of extinct underwater volcanoes and this fundamental research helps us to determine how the Australian continent has moved.”
“We believe on this voyage we may have found remnants of the Australian continent, which would have splintered from mainland Australia, when eastern Gondwana starting breaking apart. It will be at least a year before our hypotheses can be confirmed.”
Dr Seton and her team will explain some of their findings to Clare and her family and show them rock samples taken from the deep seafloor, kilometres below the surface.
