Participant Perspective - July 31, 2001

Interview with Bob Embley
Chief Scientist/Marine Geologist - NOAA/PMEL

Jeff G: What was the biggest surprise for you during NeMO 2001?

Bob: The biggest surprise was finding that high temperature hydrothermal chimney in the Coquille vent field. It shows you that we can still miss important features with the techniques used at present. Imaging and mapping techniques still aren't there in terms of mapping out an area this size. There are some limitations using sonar.

Jeff: What do you see as the future of scientific monitoring at Axial Volcano and other vent areas?

Bob: Five years ago we started putting instruments in here. It was partly fortuitous that the 1998 eruption happened, because we already had instruments in there at the time. From all our experience out here we figured that this was going to be the best place to monitor. It's the most active volcanic area on the ridge. That paid off. When placing the instruments before the eruption, we talked about having an autonomous system that would help us understand what was going on during the very first few days after an eruption or another type of event. We weren't able to get one out here for the first eruption. The technology is just now getting there. With the RAS and NeMO Net deployed I think this is the first time that anyone has a monitoring system that actually has the potential of taking samples during an eruption on the seafloor. This is an important step and we'd like to see more instruments being plugged into that system that would monitor in real-time. This would include seafloor pressure sensors to monitor inflation of the volcano and changes in the magma supply underneath. It would give us some clues about when it might erupt and what effects it would have on the chemistry and biology of the system. Eventually we'd like to have something that would allow us to do more synoptic surveys of the whole volcano and take samples periodically where there are events. The only technology to do this is with an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). AUV's are really coming into their own now. Industry is putting a lot of money into it. I think we'll have vehicles that will be able to do the job in a couple years. That's the next step in being able to continuously monitor the volcano. It's a really important one.

Jeff: NeMO has a big outreach program. Is this going to continue in the future?

Bob: I think perhaps NeMO will be expanded to other sites and outreach will be an important part of it. The ability to send real-time images back, both of the ship and of the seafloor, is very useful. As technology improves we'll be able to interact more with people on the shore for educational and outreach programs. The public is interested in seeing the ocean but there's very limited access to it by the public. It's just the nature of being able to transmit images from below the surface. The technology is very expensive at this point but I think there will be more opportunities in the future. Publicists at NOAA have a big commitment to this, so it's going to be an important part of any big program.

Jeff: You've been on various cruises since early June. Are you ready to go home?

Bob: Yes, I think so. We have to spend a lot of time onshore trying to analyze and publish results. You acquire a lot of information during fieldwork. It takes a long time to analyze and publish it. You get 50 to 100 times more data now on a given cruise than you did 10 or 20 years ago. So, it's changed a lot. I'm ready to go home but I also realize that there's a lot of work ahead from the data that we have in hand and the data from past years. This year we're going to put a lot of the historical and current data together. We've got a big meeting next year in Honolulu where we'll have a lot of technical talks. There's a lot of work left to be done over the next six months. I'm anxious to start.