GEN-ERIC News

Call it a new type of fishing “net": studying the ocean by connecting the seafloor to the Internet. The first step of NEPTUNE, a joint U.S.-Canadian effort to create the world’s first regional cabled ocean observatory, was made last week when the French ship Ile de Sein laid down submarine fiber-optic cables in the Pacific Ocean. Fiber-optic cables can transmit more data at a faster pace than other technologies. The Canadian section of the observatory, supported by the University of Victoria in Canada, will be built off the west coast of Vancouver Island. NEPTUNE Canada will connect hundreds of oceanographic instruments to the Internet by way of a 500-mile (800-kilometer) long fiber-optic cable that encircles the northern Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. The plate, which is named after a Greek explorer, is sliding under the western side of the North American plate. The instruments include underwater microphones that will “eavesdrop on the ocean"; sensors that will monitor nutrient levels; and various video cameras, wave sensors, and seismometers.