NEW DISCOVERIES: Neville Barrett with the robot sub that is exploring the sea bed off Tasmania. Picture: NIKKI DAVIS-JONES
THE great age of exploration is not over in Australia.
Late last week, the research vessel Challenger returned to Hobart after its latest voyage of discovery, surveying the Flinders Shelf off Cape Barren Island.
The crew used sophisticated sonar and video technology mounted on a submarine robot to map and monitor new worlds at the bottom of the sea, providing scientists with mountains of data to analyse.
CSIRO senior researcher Keith Hayes said remarkably little was known about the sea around Australia.
Its internationally recognised exclusive economic zone stretches 200 nautical miles offshore, covering an area larger than the country itself, yet only 5 per cent of the sea bed has been mapped.
"We still have millions of square kilometres to go," Dr Hayes said.
The explorers were looking at Australia's fisheries and resources, biodiversity hotspots and the topography of the sea bed, not least in the huge new marine reserves the Federal Government gazetted last year.
"If we are going to manage it properly, we need to find out more," Dr Hayes said.
He said sonar and video equipment had advanced greatly during the past 20 years and the challenge was to make good use of all the data being collected on voyages.
Up to 50 data specialists from throughout Australia took part in a workshop in Hobart last month to determine how to handle and interpret the masses of information.
"As the data becomes better and the images are of finer resolution, it raises questions of how we can interpret it, what kind of maps we can make and what approaches we can take," Dr Hayes said.
"The questions scientists ask are becoming more sophisticated."
Neville Barrett from the University of Tasmania's Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies, who was on the latest Challenger voyage, said the robot sub, officially known as an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle, was capable of taking 30,000 pictures a day and reaching depths of 300m.
"Nothing else we've got matches it," Dr Barrett said.
"It hovers just 1m off the bottom taking perfect pictures."
Another device, the Baited Remote Underwater Video, filmed fish at the bottom of the sea.
Despite all the technology, Dr Barrett and his colleagues still face the same elements explorers of old did.
He said the latest voyage was cut short because of "horrendous weather".
philip.heyward@news.com.au
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Journey to bottom of the sea
Dengan url
http://obrasartikel.blogspot.com/2013/07/journey-to-bottom-of-sea.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Journey to bottom of the sea
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar