The E/V Nautilus will transit up the west coast of the United States to explore Canadian waters for the first time. The mission is to install and connect the Internet to the deep sea the west coast of Canada in the northeast Pacific.
Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) operates world leading cabled ocean observatories that supply continuous power and Internet connectivity to a broad suite of subsea instruments. The ONC observatory installations span one of the widest ranges of ocean environments found anywhere in the world.
The observatories allow scientists to operate instruments remotely and receive data at their home laboratories anywhere on the globe in realtime. By co-locating instruments of different types, researchers can study interactions among geological, chemical, physical, and biological processes that drive the dynamic earth-ocean system. These long-term observations have wide-ranging policy applications in the areas of climate change, earthquakes and tsunamis, impacts, port security and shipping, sovereignty and security, and sound ocean management.
The Nautilus will conduct dual-ship operations with the R/V Thompson and use undersea robot (remotely operated vehicles) to conduct ONC observatory operations in these remote and diverse ocean environments.
