Sicily’s Hidden Hydrothermal Vents
Picture the Mediterranean Sea in late summer, an expanse of exquisite turquoise blue against a backdrop of verdant islands. Below that picturesque surface there exists a system of shallow hydrothermal systems associated with small volcanic structures. At depths of 20 to 160 meters, these unique underwater ecosystems are still relatively unexplored.
Onboard the Italian research vessel Gaia Blu, Dr. Alessandra Savini and her team of marine scientists will carry out a surveying mission this summer to these hydrothermal sites, funded through a competitive grant from the Italian National Research Council (CNR). “The geochemical characterization of hydrothermal systems, combined with habitat observations, would represent a valuable contribution to the marine ecological research community where such environments are still understudied,” Dr. Savini explains. What insights and surprises await will no doubt be determined by the quality of data they are able to collect.
Considering Efficiency & Impact
The work class ROVs that have been traditionally deployed for marine surveys, massive machines that can span the size of a truck to the size of a city bus or larger, are prohibitively expensive for small, specialized research teams like Dr. Savini’s. In addition, the delicate nature of the marine ecosystems in these shallow waters put them at risk of being damaged by the torrential thruster flow of these units. To make their mission both financially and environmentally feasible, a new solution was proposed to safely and efficiently observe these hydrothermal ecosystems.
The SEAMOR Marine Steelhead ROV: Deployable at Speed
A SEAMOR Steelhead ROV will be deployed by Dr. Savini and her team to the Sicily channel to conduct this CNR-backed mission. The primary objective will be to record video data for hydrothermal habitat characterization, with potential secondary objectives including water sampling and rock sample extraction with a manual gripper.
The small crew of the Gaia Blu will have no problem deploying the Steelhead ROV, which can be transported by passenger vehicle to the site and deployed on mission by two people. The crew’s previous experience deploying and piloting the Steelhead for other scientific endeavours, including small vessel field missions ranging from days to weeks, will further optimize the efficiency of their Steelhead’s deployment.
Maximum Value through Modularity
A range of scientific instrumentation will be critical to the mission, including the Steelhead’s in-built HD video camera and a range of auxiliary equipment such as a box-corer, a manual gripper, and a water sampler. With the intentionally modular design of all SEAMOR Marine ROVs, swapping out these auxiliary tooling combinations will be quick and seamless to maximize their fly time.
Given the shallow and delicate nature of these hydrothermal vents, Dr Savini and her team will need to maximize ROV stability while keeping sediment disturbance as low as possible. The Steelhead’s two horizontal and two vertical/lateral thrusters will provide a stable base for scientific instrumentation for the highest quality data extraction data while also minimizing disruption of this understudied environment.
Accessible Surveying for Innovative Research
In an age where environmental understanding is more important than ever and scientific funding is hard to come by, Dr. Savini believes that “compact ROV systems like the Steelhead can play a crucial role in advancing marine research, especially when access to larger infrastructure is limited.” These more agile units will allow Dr. Savini and research teams elsewhere to conduct cost-efficient, low-impact surveys of unique and important marine sites around the world.
We wish Dr. Savini and her team all the best on their hydrothermal vent surveys this summer and are proud to be a strategic technological partner in this mission through our Steelhead ROV. To find out how a SEAMOR Marine ROV can augment your marine research team, visit seamor.com.
