On September 1st the 274-foot Naval research vessel Thomas G. Thompson pulled into Newport, Oregon. Its crew of researchers, engineers, graduate and undergraduate students – and one dean – had just completed a three week expedition called Visions ’11 to survey and assess the installation of an underwater network of sensors in the Pacific Northwest. When it’s completed the network will form an underwater observatory that simultaneously measures changes to the ocean’s physical, chemical, biological and geological processes. This kind of holistic approach to exploring the ocean may afford researchers a better understanding of how the different processes are linked. It is a shift away from typical ship-based research in which sensors or submersibles descend for a period of time, collect data, and are then retrieved. The new approach that could revolutionize oceanography.

The expedition is part of a broader effort called Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). Funded by the National Science Foundation, the OOI’s mission is to establish a fully integrated sensory system on the seafloor that will collect data for decades. When everything is in place the OOI observatory will be an oceanographer’s dream of underwater analysis fun. Located about 300 miles off the Oregon coast, the observatory will have 16 sensors to study the seafloor and 17 sensors to study the column of water between the floor and the surface. Measurements include magma activity beneath the seafloor, flow from the hydrothermal vents, sediment movement, life-attracting pockets called gas hydrate formations and water flow at multiple locations.