RV Investigator now has a main mast!
Posted: March 27, 2013 Filed under: Home | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, Future Research Vessel Project, Main mast, RV Investigator, Weather research radar Leave a commentWork has been underway for some time on the main mast, which will house a research weather radar at the very top.
Here are the photos showing work underway and the mast fitted to Investigator.
Did you know there’s such a thing as sesimic seating?
Posted: March 25, 2013 Filed under: Home | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, Future Research Vessel Project, Future Reserach Vessel Project, RV Investigator, Seismic compressor, Seismic seating Leave a comment
This photo had me a little puzzled. It’s actually of the seismic seating on RV Investigator.
This is the frame the seismic compressors sit on, and will be bolted to. There’s a frame or seat on each side of the container hold, one for each compressor.
Southern Surveyor voyage to the Tasmantid Seamounts
Posted: March 20, 2013 Filed under: Home | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, Dr Benjamin Cohen, Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs, Extinct volcanoes, Southern Surveyor, Tasmantid Seamounts, University of Queensland Leave a commentIn December 2012, Dr Benjamin Cohen from the University of Queensland led a team on board Australia’s Marine National Facility research vessel, Southern Surveyor, to explore, map and take seafloor samples of the Tasmantid Seamounts.
Here’s a little excerpt from Ben Cohen’s summary of his voyage, and some fabulous photos.
The ocean floor is the Earth’s last great frontier: we have better Lunar and Martian maps than of our own planet.
Part of this great unknown lies on Australia’s doorstep, only 150-600 km east of the mainland. Here a 2000 km long chain of submerged volcanoes rise over 4000 m above the seafloor – nearly twice the height of Mt Kosciusko, Australia’s highest mountain on land.
These undersea mountains – the Tasmantid Seamounts – are extinct volcanoes formed above a mantle hotspot, similar to the Hawaiian Islands. Our expedition aimed to map and sample the Tasmantid volcanoes with state-of-the-art technologies aboard Australia’s Marine National Facility research vessel Southern Surveyor.
The maps have enabled visualization of these volcanoes in unprecedented detail. Meanwhile, samples collected during the expedition allow us to study these volcanoes back in the laboratory, allowing us to address questions such as the volcanic age and eruptive history, and subsequent growth of carbonate reefs upon the extinct volcanic pedestals.
Australia’s Marine National Facility Steering Committee in Canberra!
Posted: March 18, 2013 Filed under: Home | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, Professor Craig Johnson, Professor Richard Arculus Leave a comment
(l to r) Toni Moate, Professor Richard Arculus, Scott Constable, Rescue Coordination Centre Chief-AMSA, Professor Craig Johnson, Graham Peachey, Ron Plaschke, Greg Paten, John Young, General Manager, Emergency Response Division-AMSA, Linda Gaskell and Leigh Walters.
Australia’s Marine National Facility Steering Committee met in Canberra recently and welcomed back Chair Professor Craig Johnson, who has been on study leave the past year.
A big thank you to Professor Richard Arculus, who stood in as Chair of the Steering Committee while Professor Johnson was away.
The meeting was held at the Australian Maritime Safety Authority offices, and while they were there, the committee members were given a tour of the Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC Australia) by John Young, the General Manager Emergency Response Division, and Scott Constable, the RCC Chief.
The committee members were able to see RCC Australia’s NEXUS incident management system demonstrated, using real incident cases, to show how the centre performs aviation and maritime search and rescue coordination, and how it integrates with other AMSA sections for incidents such as maritime casualties and pollution responses.
One area that caught the committee’s interest was the Craft Tracking system within NEXUS, which provides a live geographical feed of aircraft and vessel information across the Australian Search and Rescue Region.
Now that’s really cool!
RV Investigator looking switched on!
Posted: March 13, 2013 Filed under: Home, Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, engines, power supply, RV Investigator, Switchboard room Leave a commentA lot of work has been going on inside RV Investigator and you won’t believe the changes. Check out these photos of the switchboard room, which is looking pretty switched on!
This is the room where the electricity generated by the diesel engines and their alternators gets distributed around the ship to power absolutely everything.
On Investigator each engine can theoretically generate 2.88 megawatts of power so with all three running we can theoretically generate about 9 megawatts of power.
To give this some perspective, the average Australian household consumes 18 kilowatt (kW) hours each day.
Using this as a basis, let’s say each house consumes 18kW at any instant, therefore 9MW divided by 18kW means we could power 500 average Australian homes comfortably.
So we could power a small suburb or a country town!
Take a bow… block 201 is lifted into place!
Posted: March 11, 2013 Filed under: Home, Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, bow of the ship, Future Research Vessel Project, gondola, LEGO Investigator, RV Investigator 4 CommentsRV Investigator’s block 201, the bow of the ship at the deck level, has been completed and lifted into place.
This is an enormous block, which had to be constructed in smaller sections, assembled on the wharf, and then lifted into place.
Only the gondola is yet to be fitted to the hull of the ship.
How incredible does Investigator look now!
RV Investigator’s gondola nears completion
Posted: March 8, 2013 Filed under: Home, Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project | Tags: Australia's Marine National Facility, Future Reserach Vessel Project, gondola, RV Investigator, seafloor, sub bottom profiler, swath map Leave a commentRV Investigator’s gondola is nearing completion and so too is the section in the hull of the ship where it will be attached.
The gondola will house several important acoustic instruments, including two swath mappers, to map the seafloor. One operates to a depth of about 500 metres and will be used on the shelf and the upper slope for very high-resolution maps. The other is a full ocean-depth mapper, which is able to map at depths of 7 kilometres and about 15 kilometres either side of the ship.
The gondola will also contain a sub-bottom profiler that can determine the make-up of the seafloor. A signal coming from this equipment can penetrate to around 25 metres into sand and about 100 metres in loose sediments.
Here are the latest photos showing the gondola in the fabrication shed and the part of the hull of the ship, where the gondola will be attached. 
