NUCLEAR SUBMARINE PUTS TO SEA TO SERVE SCIENCE
Researchers supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) are sailing
aboard a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine in April to map the oceanic ridges and
basins beneath the Arctic ice cap and study ocean currents that may have an
affect on global climate.
NSF is mounting Scientific Ice Expedition (SCICEX) '99 in cooperation with
the U.S. Navy and the Office of Naval Research. The exercise is the fifth
in a series of annual SCICEX missions, all of which have employed some of
the world's stealthiest and most maneuverable warships. "This is a
capability that is not available anywhere else in the world," stressed
Thomas E. Pyle, head of Arctic Sciences in NSF's Office of Polar Programs.
SCICEX '99 will be conducted aboard USS Hawkbill (SSN 666), which is able to
travel almost at will under the ice, making it a unique platform for a
sophisticated sonar system dubbed the Seafloor Characterization and Mapping
Pods (SCAMP).
SCAMP consists of two separate, but complementary devices. The Sidescan
Swath Bathymetric Sonar (SSBS) produces an image of the sea floor on either
side of the submarine. A second sonar, the High-Resolution Sub-bottom
Profiler (HRSP), sends signals into the upper 200 meters of the seabed to
make images of the structure of underlying sediments. "The fundamental
problem that we're trying to solve is how to do high-resolution imaging of
the sea floor in the Arctic in a fashion that is similar to what we do in
the open ocean from surface vessels," said Dale Chayes, a senior staff
associate at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO).
Chief scientist for SCICEX '99 Margo H. Edwards, of the University of
Hawaii, said SCAMP will help investigate the character of the ocean-floor
in waters that ice cover previously made largely inaccessible to civilian
researchers.
The SCICEX team will examine the Gakkel Ridge, the slowest spreading mid
ocean ridge in the world. Although the ridges usually are sites of volcanic
activity, scientists expect to find fewer eruptions there. Less volcanism
may make it possible to better understand the other processes that
contribute to the creation of oceanic crust. Scientists also will look for
evidence of glacial scouring on the Chukchi Borderland off Alaska that could
provide evidence of the extent and depth of ice cover during the last Ice
Age. They also will examine the Lomonosov Ridge to obtain clues as to how
the Amerasian basin, one of several basins in the Arctic, may have formed.
This year's SCICEX mission includes an unusual venture into Norwegian
territorial waters to study undersea sediments on the Yermak Plateau.
Permission for the excursion was secured by Yngve Kristofferson, a
researcher at the Institute for Solid Earth Physics at the University of
Bergen.
Sensors mounted on the submarine's "sail", probes launched into the water
that transmit data by wire and chemical analyses of water samples collected
while underway will help determine the temperature, salinity and composition
of a strong circumpolar current that flows around the boundary of the Arctic
Ocean, said Tom Weingartner, a marine scientist at the University of Alaska
Fairbanks. The current transports water from the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans throughout the Arctic, he noted. "Those water masses play a very
important role in the present-day status of the ice pack and changes in the
delivery would have an influence and effect on ice distribution," he added.
Such changes could affect how much heat is reflected and absorbed by the ice
pack, which could, in turn, have global implications.
Aboard Hawkbill, measurements of temperature and salinity that can be made
at very closely spaced increments of time over a period of five days, would
probably require at least a month to conduct on an icebreaker, he said.
Such drastic differences in the duration and frequency of the sampling could
dramatically affect its usefulness, he noted.
-NSF-
[For more information, including abstracts of previous SCICEX
research, see: http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/scicex/
Contact: Mary Hanson/Peter West April 10, 1999
(703) 306-1070 PS 99-3]
Statement by DR. RITA COLWELL, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION On
Scientific Ice Expedition '99 (SCICEX)
SCICEX '99 opens a window on globally significant scientific knowledge that
would otherwise locked away by the tenacious grip of Arctic ice. It
celebrates a productive scientific-military partnership. And it recognizes
that women are achieving more leadership roles in science.
SCICEX '99 promises to shed new light on critical scientific questions
concerning climate change. USS Hawkbill (SSN 666) and her sister ships on
previous SCICEX missions are giving us new insights into Arctic ocean
currents and the topography beneath perpetually ice-covered seas. The data
gathered on this and other SCICEX missions are uncovering important clues
about the circulation of the Arctic Ocean currents and their potential
effects in altering the composition of the Arctic ice pack. These clues may
help us to better understand the cause and effects of global climate change.
Forty years after USS Skate (SSN 578) became the first submarine to surface
at the North Pole, a nuclear submarine remains the best tool available to
pry these clues from the Arctic waters. The remote ice-covered Arctic ocean
could not be as effectively explored by any other vessel. SCICEX '99 is the
5th such mission conducted jointly by the U.S. Navy and the National Science
Foundation. The U.S. Navy is once again dedicating one of its most precious
assets in the peaceful pursuit of scientific knowledge. What a marvelous
example of interagency cooperation.
SCICEX also demonstrates that, just as the pursuit of scientific knowledge
should know no geographic or physical boundaries, neither should gender be a
limiting factor. I am especially proud that a woman scientist will lead
this year's SCICEX mission. The selection of Margo H. Edwards, a geologist
and geophysicist at the University of Hawaii, as chief scientist for SCICEX
'99 shows the great progress women scientists have made over the last decade
in achieving leadership of large science programs.
Submarines are built to hunt. Rather than Red October, this submarine hunts
for new knowledge and greater understanding. Its enemies are ignorance and
apathy. Its victory will be a better world for future generations.
[Colwell will visit USS Hawkbill (SSN 666) April 10-11. She
is the first female director of the National Science Foundation and the
first NSF director to visit a submarine during the five-year series of
SCICEX missions. SCICEX '99 Chief Scientist Margo Edwards is the first
female to hold that position.]