Chief Scientist Bob Embley.

NOAA Ship Ron Brown/ROV ROPOS
Science News

NeMO2001 Overview
Bob Embley, Chief Scientist

Our fourth NeMO expedition has been very productive, with a record number of dives, experiments, and samples resulting in the most efficient cruise to date. The vents continue to evolve and change three years after the eruption in January, 1998, but at an apparently lesser rate than in the past years. During these expeditions, we have collected more than 1000 samples and experiments for chemical, biologic and geologic studies. Now the task is to analyze these data and publish the results.

Starting next year, we see the NeMO observatory passing into a monitoring phase, awaiting the volcano's awakening before the next major eruptive phase. In that light, we have deployed the first interactive vent monitor with the Remotely Activated Sampler at Cloud Vent. For the first time we will be able to obtain fluid samples on demand during a seismic event occurring on the volcano or on the nearby ridge. With this step, NeMO has been able to establish the world's first deep-water autonomous seafloor volcano observatory. In future years, we plan to add other other sensors and staion an autonomous vehicle here.

NeMO 2001 also made us realize that there are still new things to be learned here. The discovery of Vixen and Casper vents in the southwestern part of the caldera was a complete surprise, but led to some new ideas on the origins of some of the venting we have been looking at over the past few years. It was also a reminder that even though the caldera is really quite small, only 2 by 5 miles, we have still only seen a very small part of it. Although our tools are getting better all the time, we remain dependent on acoustic methods to image large areas, and this limits the size of the features we can image (and interpret with any confidence), to about 5 to 10 meters on a side.

NeMO has also been an experiment in using a remotely operated vehicle for exploration and intense interdisciplinary studies. We have no doubt that this has been successful. The ability of an ROV like ROPOS to facilitate interdisciplinary research is truly outstanding and, in this sense, NeMO is a prototype for future deep-sea research.

We have also strived to reach out to the public and to educators in order to share our experiences on the seafloor. Although it is difficult to directly measure how successful this has been, we are committed to enhancing this aspect of the program in the future. The new NeMO Explorer website provides the first web-accessible virtual seafloor vent tour. Combining these tools with live webcasts from the seafloor will further enhance our ability to make all of you part of this new seafloor exploration.

What will the future hold? While we reamain fully committed to the NeMO concept and plan on maintatining a monitoring capability here, next year we may also explore the northern part of the Juan de Fuca ridge. A large but poorly known vent complex will be the target of our interdisciplinary team. We will use the latest mapping tools along with an ROV to explore this site.

Thanks for signing on and we will be back next year. Please look for us!