Michael Brooking Photography
Global Sentinel
Since 1991 when the cable ship Global Sentinel first set sail, she has installed thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables on the floors of oceans all over the world. No job was too big for the mighty Sentinel and her crew.
Now, off the coast of California, the CS Global Sentinel is being tasked with a very interesting installation— laying a new, first-of-its-kind power and fiber-optic cable. Specifically, a 10-kilowatt electrical power and fiber-optic cable for a power socket 52 kilometers into Monterey Bay, Calif. This will be the smallest yet one of the most important installations the ship has ever undertaken.
For decades, scientists who wanted to study ocean changes and sea conditions had to rely on batteries to power their instruments, which were relatively short-lived. Now, that is about to change, thanks to years of development by the Monterey Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and financial support from the National Science Foundation.
In March 2007, the Global Sentinel and her crew will carefully lay 52 kilometers (32 miles) of power and fiber-optic cable the size of a garden hose in Monterey Bay. The cable will be laid from the shore end at Moss Landing to the resting place of a node about 3,000 feet beneath the waves, where various instruments can be plugged in and receive power on which to run and in turn send back live data via the fiber-optics to the shore station.
Called MARS, short for Monterey Accelerated Research System, this will allow scientists access 24 hours a day, seven days a week over long periods to study the ocean in real time. The cable will follow the shelf along the north side of the bay and be buried about a meter beneath the sea floor to minimize the impact to sea life in the area. At the end of the cable will be a five-ton node where up to eight different sensors of all types can be plugged into the system. Some of the sensors to be installed are quake sensors to detect earthquakes along the earth’s plates; another will be a low-light camera, to peer into the darkness of the deep. To plug in a system, scientists will send down an ROV (remote operated vehicle) and connect the instruments into the socket that sits permanently on the shelf in 900 meters (about 3,000 feet) of water.
The CS Global Sentinel is manned in all unlicensed departments by the SIU. Deck and engine officers are manned by the AMO, while ROV operators are from Tyco’s submersibles division. The various other technical personnel are from Tyco’s electronics divisions.
The MARS project is to serve as a test bed for more extensive ocean observatories in U.S. and Canadian waters. To learn more about the MARS project, you can visit www.mbari.org/mars
Global Sentinel
Since 1991 when the cable ship Global Sentinel first set sail, she has installed thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables on the floors of oceans all over the world. No job was too big for the mighty Sentinel and her crew.
Now, off the coast of California, the CS Global Sentinel is being tasked with a very interesting installation— laying a new, first-of-its-kind power and fiber-optic cable. Specifically, a 10-kilowatt electrical power and fiber-optic cable for a power socket 52 kilometers into Monterey Bay, Calif. This will be the smallest yet one of the most important installations the ship has ever undertaken.
For decades, scientists who wanted to study ocean changes and sea conditions had to rely on batteries to power their instruments, which were relatively short-lived. Now, that is about to change, thanks to years of development by the Monterey Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and financial support from the National Science Foundation.
In March 2007, the Global Sentinel and her crew will carefully lay 52 kilometers (32 miles) of power and fiber-optic cable the size of a garden hose in Monterey Bay. The cable will be laid from the shore end at Moss Landing to the resting place of a node about 3,000 feet beneath the waves, where various instruments can be plugged in and receive power on which to run and in turn send back live data via the fiber-optics to the shore station.
Called MARS, short for Monterey Accelerated Research System, this will allow scientists access 24 hours a day, seven days a week over long periods to study the ocean in real time. The cable will follow the shelf along the north side of the bay and be buried about a meter beneath the sea floor to minimize the impact to sea life in the area. At the end of the cable will be a five-ton node where up to eight different sensors of all types can be plugged into the system. Some of the sensors to be installed are quake sensors to detect earthquakes along the earth’s plates; another will be a low-light camera, to peer into the darkness of the deep. To plug in a system, scientists will send down an ROV (remote operated vehicle) and connect the instruments into the socket that sits permanently on the shelf in 900 meters (about 3,000 feet) of water.
The CS Global Sentinel is manned in all unlicensed departments by the SIU. Deck and engine officers are manned by the AMO, while ROV operators are from Tyco’s submersibles division. The various other technical personnel are from Tyco’s electronics divisions.
The MARS project is to serve as a test bed for more extensive ocean observatories in U.S. and Canadian waters. To learn more about the MARS project, you can visit www.mbari.org/mars