Technology used in Earth - Ocean Systems
Technology for observing the ocean and Earth system can include instruments deployed for long periods of time, but can also include equipment used for shorter-term experiments. These experiments (often known as 'process studies') are designed by scientists to test ideas about how they think the ocean and Earth system work.
Here are three examples of how technology can be applied to understanding the ocean and Earth system.
One of the most visually compelling aspects of being at sea is the sight of high waves, breaking at their crests, and the foam spreading over the surface. This is a prime example of air-sea interaction. While this is an area of study for physics, it is also important to study the exchange of gasses between the air and the sea. We have developed a special buoy – a spar buoy, so called because of its slender form – to count the frequency of breaking waves (pictured right).
Ripples left on the sand as the tide goes out are an example of the sea's effect on the seabed. Novel technology in the form of an echosounder (left) that uses the Doppler principle to obtain fine-scale measurements of the currents above the seabed is helping scientists understand the movement of sand and sediments under the influence of waves and currents.
Photographs of 'black smoker' hydrothermal vents illustrate the movement of fluids from beneath the seabed into the ocean. Finding such vents can be hit-and-miss. But, by carrying optical and chemical sensors on robot submarines, one scientist now likens the task to "catching fish in a barrel". The image on the right shows the EH signal measured by Autosub6000 from Cayman Trough over the Mount Dent hydrothermal vent site.
