Benoît Pirenne

Challenges, Benefits, and Opportunities in Installing and Operating Cabled Ocean Observatories: Perspectives From NEPTUNE Canada

The first cabled ocean observatories demonstrate the challenges, benefits, and opportunities for ocean science and commercial applications. NEPTUNE Canadas 800-km subsea infrastructure and 130 diverse instruments established the worlds first regional cabled ocean observatory, northeast Pacific Ocean, off Canadas coast. Introducing abundant power and high bandwidth communications into coastal to abyssal environments allows discrimination between short- and long-term events, interactive experiments, real-time data and imagery, and multidisciplinary teams interrogating a vast database over 25 years. The principal scientific themes addressed through the NEPTUNE Canada infrastructure are: plate tectonic processes and earthquake dynamics; dynamic processes of seabed fluid fluxes and gas hydrates; regional ocean/climate dynamics and effects on marine biota; deep-sea ecosystem dynamics; and engineering and computational research. Resulting data can be applied to important science issues such as ocean/climate change, ocean acidification, natural hazards, and nonrenewable and renewable natural resources. Socioeconomic benefits include many applications in sovereignty, security, transportation, data services, and public policy. The Data Management and Archive System has largely been developed internally. It controls the observatory network and gives transparent access using interoperability techniques within a Web 2.0 environment. The principal challenges encountered during design, installation, and operations involve technical innovations, enlarging the user base, management, securing funding, maximizing educational/outreach, and commercialization opportunities. Cabled ocean observatories are progressively wiring the oceans. Expandable in footprint, nodes, instruments, and scientific questions, they provide testing technology facilities and generate new research opportunities and socioeconomic benefits.

NEPTUNE Canada: Installation and initial operation of the world’s first regional cabled ocean observatory

NEPTUNE Canada (NC) has built the world’s first regional cabled ocean observatory in the north-east Pacific Ocean off the coast of British Columbia. The observatory became operational in late 2009 with instruments added to the last node site in 2010-2012 and others replaced or added on an ongoing basis.

Developing in the dark: Software Development and Quality Assurance for the VENUS/NEPTUNE Canada Cabled Observatories

The software in support of the NEPTUNE Canada underwater cabled observatory faced multiple uncertainties and risk factors regarding the scope and nature of the instrumentation to be supported as well as the functional requirements for data storage and retrieval. This is not an unexpected situation for totally new, innovative and large science projects. This paper reviews the challenges, issues and solution adopted for ensuring the highest possible software quality given the circumstances of the project.

Challenges, benefits and opportunities in operating cabled ocean observatories: Perspectives from NEPTUNE Canada

The advent of the first cabled ocean observatories, with several others being planned, demonstrates the challenges, benefits and opportunities for ocean science and commercial applications. Examples are drawn primarily from NEPTUNE Canada (NC), which completed installation of the subsea infrastructure and 60 diverse instruments in 2009, with 40 more in 2010, thereby establishing the worlds first regional cabled ocean observatory, northeast Pacific Ocean, off British Columbias coast. Initial data flow started in December 2009. Another 30 instruments will be deployed in 2011–12. Introducing abundant power and high bandwidth communications into a range of ocean environments allows discrimination between short and long-term events, interactive experiments, real time data and imagery, and complex multidisciplinary teams interrogating a vast database over the observatorys 25-year design life. Scientific priorities and observatory node sites were identified through workshops. Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks designed, manufactured and installed the 800km backbone cable and five nodes (stepping 10kV DC to 400V DC). Node sites are located at the coast (Folger Passage), continental slope (ODP 889; Barkley Canyon), abyssal plain (ODP 1027), and ocean-spreading ridge (Endeavour), in water depths of 100–2660m. Principal scientific themes are: plate tectonic processes and earthquake dynamics; dynamic processes of seabed fluid fluxes and gas hydrates; regional ocean/climate dynamics and effects on marine biota; deep-sea ecosystem dynamics; and engineering and computational research. The Data Management and Archive System (DMAS) provides controls for the observatory network and transparent access to other data providers using interoperability techniques within a Web 2.0 environment. Users can perform data visualization and analysis on-line with either default or custom processing code, as well as simultaneously interacting with each other. Oceans 2.0 is adding tools to perform software-aided feature detection and classification of sounds in acoustic data streams. New knowledge and scientific interpretations are addressing important science applications of the observatory: ocean/climate change, ocean acidification, recognizing and mitigating natural hazards, non-renewable and renewable natural resources. Challenges are considerable: technical innovations, enlarging the user base, management, funding, maximizing educational/outreach activities. Socio-economic benefits are substantial: not only the transformation of ocean sciences but with many applications in sectors such as sovereignty, security, transportation, data services, and public policy. Opportunities for commercialization of technologies and data services/products are being facilitated by the Centre of Enterprise and Engagement (www.onccee.ca) within Ocean Networks Canada (www.networkscanada.ca) that manages the NC and VENUS observatories (www.neptunecanada.ca; www.uvic.venus.ca). Cabled ocean observatories are transforming the ocean sciences and will result in a progressive wiring of the oceans. They are designed to be expandable in footprint, nodes and instruments, and the range of scientific questions, and to provide facilities for testing technology prototypes. They will provide a wealth of new research opportunities and socio-economic benefits.

NEPTUNE Canada Instruments Interface Requirements

The NEPTUNE Canada regional cabled observatory will be installed in the North East Pacific in 2007 and 2008. The observatory is going to represent an extension of the Internet under the Ocean. If all goes as planned, in about two years, six distinct locations of scientific interest will share about 200 instruments to be made available to the science community. The data from the instruments will be public and open. Interactive, direct access will be restricted to privileged users so as to avoid contention, effects on the environment and disruption of on-going survey programs. In order to efficiently manage the acquisition, testing, integration, installation, operation and maintenance of so many diverse devices, a significant amount of standardization is going to be necessary. This paper will describe the salient features of our instrument acceptance policy, the principles that we are following and why they represent a necessary approach to ensuring the manageability and scalability of the observatory. Requirements covering connectivity, communication, hardware quality, data format and meta data completeness are described. Also included are the considerations covering aspects of maintainability and operability

Large subsea observatory for earth-ocean science: Challenges of multidisciplinary integration across hardware, software, and people networks

NEPTUNE Canada has installed and is operating a regional cabled ocean observatory from the coast across the northern Juan de Fuca Plate in the northeastern Pacific. Installation of the first suite of instruments and connectivity equipment was completed in 2009, so this system now provides the continuous power and bandwidth to collect integrated data on physical, chemical, geological, and biological gradients at temporal resolutions relevant to the dynamics of the earth-ocean system. The building of this facility integrates hardware, software, and people networks. Hardware progress to date includes: installation of the 800km powered fiber-optic backbone in fall 2007 (lOkV DC and lOGbsec communications); technological development of Nodes and Junction Boxes; acquisition/development and testing of Instruments; development of mobile instrument platforms such as (a) a Vertical Profiler (NGK Ocean, Japan) and (b) a Crawler (Jacobs University, Bremen); and integration of over a thousand components into an operating subsea sensor system. Nodes, extension cables, junction boxes, and instruments were installed at 4 out of 5 locations in 2009; the fifth Node (Endeavour Ridge) will be instrumented in September 2010. In parallel, software and hardware systems have been developed for acquiring, archiving, and delivering the continuous real-time data through the Internet to the world -already many terabytes of data (about 60TB/yr). A web environment (Oceans 2.0) to combine this data access with analysis and visualization, collaborative tools, interoperability, and instrument control is being released. Finally, a network of scientists and technicians are contributing to the process in every phase, and data users already number in the thousands. Initial experiments were planned through a series of workshops and international proposal competitions. At inshore Folger Passage, Barkley Sound (17-100m), understanding controls on biological productivity help evaluate the effects that marine processes have on fish and marine mammals. Experiments around Barkley Canyon (400-1000 m) allow quantification of changes in biological and chemical activity associated with nutrient and cross-shelf sediment transport around the shelf/slope break and through the canyon to the deep sea. There and north along the mid-continental slope (ODP 889 site at 1250 m), instruments on exposed and shallowly buried gas hydrates allow monitoring of changes in their distribution, structure, and venting, particularly related to earthquakes, slope failures and regional plate motions. Circulation obviation retrofit kits (CORKs) at mid-plate ODP 1026-7 (2660 m) monitor real-time changes in crustal temperature and pressure, particularly as they relate to events such as earthquakes, hydrothermal convection or regional plate strain. At Endeavour Ridge (2200 m), complex interactions among volcanic, tectonic, hydrothermal and biological processes will be quantified at the western edge of the Juan de Fuca plate. Across the network, high resolution seismic information elucidates tectonic processes such as earthquakes, and a tsunami system allows determination of open ocean tsunami amplitude, propagation direction, and speed. The infrastructure has further capacity to allow experiments to expand from this initial suite. Further information and opportunities can be found at www.neptunecanada.ca . NEPTUNE Canada will transform our understanding of biological, chemical, physical, and geological processes across an entire tectonic plate from the shelf to the deep sea (17-2700 m). Real-time continuous monitoring and archiving allows scientists to capture the temporal nature, characteristics, and linkages of these natural processes in a way never before possible. Data flow is open and free. New users, new instruments and commercial participation are invited; funding opportunities for further expansion may emerge in the near future.