This Article from the Seafoundation Describes Survey Aspects of the BIOSYS 2007 Expedition

Where the land ends the SEAfoundation starts

This article of the SEAfoundation describes survey aspects of the BIOSYS 2007 expedition on with the Research Vessel Pelagia to the Skagerak in March 2007. Main goal of the expedition was the investigation of cold water coral reefs.

Introduction:

Some people tend to say that we know more from the planet Mars as from our own planet. We are aware of just 10 % of what is down there on our own sea floor. In terms of making discoveries and mapping white spots, a frontier research in environmental marine science expeditions is the ongoing discovery and study of cold water coral reefs. This is due to the fact that human exploitation of the sea has begun to have an impact on the deep sea. This is in the form of deep sea-fishing, but more recently oil exploration has extended beyond the continental shelf.

Picture 1 : Side-scan sonograph showing trawl damage to the Darwin Mounds at almost

1-km water depth in the Rockall Trough (NE Atlantic). Reduced backscatter (lighter

tones) from the trawl-damaged mound strongly suggests decreased coral abundance

Deep water coral reefs occur in the upper bathyal zone throughout the world. The structures are poorly studied, but seems to have an richness in biodiversity almost matching tropical coral reefs which are actually called the rainforests of the sea. A map showing the distubution of cold water coral occurrence clearly shows their existence in areas of developed countries. But recently the existence of deepwater coral reefs in the waters of Thailand were reported by the Museum of Natural History “Naturalis” in Leiden.

Picture 2 : Current global distribution of reef framework–forming cold-water corals

The SEAfoundation was invited to the BIOSYS 2007 research cruise via the assistant curator of Rotterdam Blijdorp Zoo/Oceanium, a campaign of the NIOZ (Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research). One of the tasks of SEAfoundation was to gather underwater video footage with their Zeelandis ROV system. This was done to contribute to the research, public awareness and outreach. This article reflects some aspects of the study carried out during March 2007 to the Skagerak with RV Pelagia.

BIOSYS:

The BIOSYS program is a multi-year/ multi-country project related to the study of cold water coral reefs. A general goal within BIOSYS is to tackle questions related to biology and ecosystem functioning of deep water corals and ecosystems. Specially aimed at studying the main frame building deep water coral species as Lophelia pertusa with a special emphasis on coral growth and feeding. The BIOSYS program consist of three scientific cruises that took place in 2005 and 2006 to the Rockall Banks and to the outer Hebrides, respectively. The 2007 expedition lead to the Skagerrak with research conducted in Norwegian and Swedish waters.

Picture 3 Lophelia pertusa

Picture 4 Participants of the BIOSYS 2007 expedition

The SEAFOUNDATION:

The SEAfoundation is an independed, non-profit, non-political foundation established by Dutch Law with the following aims.

The enduring exploration, education and research of the sea. For this purpose the Foundation has a board of four people and a “think tank” of approximately 12 people.

The following mission statement has been derived:

With its multidisciplinary methodology the Seafoundation focuses on combining the hydrographical, biological, environmental, chemical, oceanographical, geologycal and technological knowledge present in universities, schools, research institutes, fisheries, industial companies and other foundations. As such the SEAfoundation works as an intermediate and promoter of projects concerning the marine environment worldwide, keeping the economical principal of the People,Planet and Profit concept in mind.

From the central working theme “Where the land ends the SEAfoundation starts” the organization aims at carrying out sea-related hands-on projects. In order to do so the SEAfoundation has its own research vessel and research equipment.

Zeelandis system:

The Zeelandis system and its utilities has been developed by the SEAfoundation,

as a relatively low-cost, high impact system for public awarenes and research to show the underwater world. The vehicle of the Zeelandis sytems consists of an American commercial ROV which has been built and sold in numbers of over 700 systems world wide. The ROV is fully powered and operated from the ship via an umbilical and has proven itself in many fields of business and science for more than a decade. The ROV is fully powered and operated from the ship via an umbilical and has proven itself in many fields of business and science for more then a decade.

The system gained 1 year of successfull operation in the Dutch Delta with projects for ecotourism, scientific research, and education. Video footage was used already on local television or projects for the Museum of Natural History, the Naturalis in Leiden.

Picture 5 : Zeelandis system at Duikvaker exhibition 2007

Due to the greater working depths during the BIOSYS cruise an extra 75 mtrs of neutral buoyant umbillical was implied on the the Videoray ROV system.

RV Pelagia:

The R/V PELAGIA (66 m x 12,8m, built 1991) is specially designed as a multi-purpose research vessel. It has very favourable nautical properties, and is known for its silent and smooth behaviour. She has a smooth hull and a specially designed four-blade propeller; Diesel electric propulsion makes every revolution of the propeller possible from zero to full power. Excellent manoeuvrability is obtained by using the omni-directional bow thruster of 400 kW in combination with the installed flap rudder.

Picture 6 RV Pelagia

The RV Pelagia has a wide range of hydrographical and scientifical instrumentation. In the scope of the BIOSYS project a DGPS system, Kongsberg EM 300, 30 kHz oceanographic multibeam system is relevant to get information on the bathymetric structure of the sea floor to better direct sampling and video monitoring to spots of interest.

Picture 7 : Example of SIS / EM 300

The ship is equiped with various cranes and A frames. Relevant for the deployment of equipment in this project is the starboard 10 tons A frame whith a 3 mtr. reach outboard. The RV Pelagia, together with the captain and crew showed very good working and sailing abilities. Although spectecular was a storm of bft 10- 11 in the German Bight on the inbound trip which was dealt with in a safe way.

Project Scope and works:

Within the BIOSYS 2007 expedition the ROV project scope was 3-fold.

1)Getting close-up videofootage for public awarenes and outreach.

2)Testing of capabilities of a low cost, micro ROV system in conjunction with the operational possibilities of RV Pelagia and her hoisting systems.

3)If possible sampling of species underwater with the ROV manipulator.

The ROV system is normally launched from a ship by its own umbilical, but due to the fact that the water depth aimed for was 100-150 meters and the unknow current situation and underwater environment a garage system was deviced and constructed on a former boxcorer frame of NIOZ that is also used for video transects. The concept of this garage system was a technical down scaled version of garage system used for ROV’s in the offshore industry.

picture 8 : ROV garage – Drop Zone - Umbilical Hold

Normally operations of this concept are handeld with DP vessels (DP=dynamic positioning system ). Which enables to keep the ship in postion on a given coordinate with a radius of 1 –5 meters depending on conditions at sea. The umbilical was attached to the hoisting wire of the garage frame.

Picture 9: Overview garage frame at side A-frame location

A combination of ROV system, garage deployment system and ship were tested operational. First with a wet test in the harbour, which was later combined with a hull inspection survey for the Multibeam sensors. The full combination of the system was tested and experience was gained in depths of 70-80 meters in relative unfavourable sea state.

Picture 10 : Zeelandis ROV

In more sheltered waters of depths of aprox 90 meters first good results were expierenced of both keeping the ship in position (stable position circle 20-30 meters or less), hoisting and hovering of the deployment system above the seabed and flying the ROV.

Some alterations were made and extra experience was gained in flying the ROV in a hovering instead of frog hopping way of flying. In this the capabilities of the ROV system to fly with all controls on 1 joy-stick worked out well after a second and third trial dive.

Picture 11 : ROV in “garage”

In these trials also the manipulator was used to get material from and back to the garage such as shells, small pieces of coral and the like. After three trial dives a good and operational safe working system, ship, deployment frame and ROV was ready to use.

First project results

The system was used on 13, 14 and 15 March 2007 on several sites in the Swedish and Norwegian Skagerrak area in water depths of 100 to 120 meters. Good video footage was made and also online inspections on the health state of the coal reefs for the scientists were gained.

Picture 12 : Project area in the Skagerrak

From this material a videofilm for public awareness will be produced. The whole system worked out very well and showed to be a safe operational system, with no damaging effect to the coral reefs.

Picture 13 – 14 : first footage result

Tthe video system of the NIOZ which was installed in the same frame shows the ROV at work.

Picture 15: Zeelandis ROV at work

One of the recommendations in conjunction to the third point of the scope is that a bigger ROV should be deployed with more payload capacity for mounting measuring instruments (e.g. environmental sensors) and with a powerful manipulator for collection of material into a basket on the ROV itself. Altogether with an own launch system to cooperate with the other systems or give less down time on research due to altering equipment for the side A - frame of the RV Pelagia.

Outcome:

In the coming months the scientists of NIOZ will get the first results of their research on f.ex. microbial growth in cold water coral reefs and feeding. In a later stage they will prepare their scientific papers. OCEANIUM has rebuilt a special (darkenend) aquarium in Rotterdam. In the coming weeks the corals collected during the BIOSYS expeditions will be placed in this aquarium to be seen for the public for the first time. They also serve if necessary as back-up material for further research. The video footage of the Zeelandis system will be presented with LCD screens near the aquarium. On the 8th of june, during World Ocean Day, the Zeelandis system and the SEAfoundation will be present for the public at Oceanium in Rotterdam Zoo.

The SEAfoundation as an “avant garde” sea research organization would like to make the following recommodations to the industry in general. Multidiscipline surveys should be seriously considered and conducted that combine (geo)physical, chemical and biological aspects of sea survey projects.

Acknownledgement:

The writer of this article wishes to express his thanks for cooperating in this project to Dr Conny Maier of NIOZ (Texel); Captain and Crew of the RV Pelagia; Dr. Michaël Laterveer of OCEANIUM/Diergaarde Blijdorp Rotterdam and all others not mentioned here, but who gave a great contribution to this expedition. (All copyrights are for BIOSYS and SEAfoundation)

Biography of the Author:

Ing. Mattijs de Lange Bsc. ( ) is a hydrographer and projectmanager with over 20 years experience in the survey industry and ICT. He is chairman of the board of the SEAfoundation ( Board member of the Hydrographic Society BeNeLux branch ( ). He is self employed currently working as general manager of ZEELANDIS.

Hydrointernational 2008 issue version 7.0