Norwegian Mapping Authority Visit
Exploring the sea floor with
ROVs and AUVs
Alejandro Hinojosa
CICESE
Hosting: Maritime Alliance
San Dego Ca., January 16th 2014
CICESE
• Mexican government research center
• Located in Ensenada, Baja California
100km south of San Diego
• 41 years old
• One of its missions: do basic and applied
research in ocean and earth sciences.
• Long time collaborations with SIO/Scripps,
MBARI, WHOI,….
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CICESE
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Participation in 3 Sea Floor Explorations in
Mexican EEZ
Scripps Institution of Oceanography(SIO), UCSD
• PI Peter Lonsdale
• 2008 ROCA (May 1-29), R/V Atlantis (WHOI) ROV Jason/Medea
• 2012 WOBA(Oct 13-21), R/V Melville(SIO), ROV Gizmo(Triton)
Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI)
• PIs: Charles K. Paull, David A. Clague, David W. Caress, Hans Thomas
• 2012 (Spring) Two Ship expedition:
• R/V Western Flyer, ROV Doc Ricketts
• R/V Zephyr, AUV (detail sea floor mapping)
ROV and AUV dive sites in the
Gulf of California and West of
Baja California
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Control Van
Jason/Medea
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•Navigator
•Engineer
•Scientist
•Arm Operator
• Students: Log, DVDs
•4hrs shifts
•16-22 hrs duration
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Lower Delfin Basin, Gulf of California
ROV tracks, depth in m
T4 in next slide
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Track 4 of ROV on Volcanic Knolls in Lower Delfin
Basin, GC
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3D reconstruction from images of moving camera, massive
point matching, photogrammetric techniques.
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Launching MBARI’s AUV
from R/V Zephyr
AUV’s operation scheme
• Multibeam bathymetry
• Side scan
• Bottom profiler
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MBARI’s (AUV) on Zephyr R/V
Doug Conlin,
Jim Boedecker,
Paul Ban
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Rigorous mission planning for AUV, based on previous
bathymetries. Programmed AUV path (50 m above gnd)
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Hydrothermal vents discovered in Alarcon
rise by high resolution bathymetry from
MBARI’s AUV
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Hydrodrothermal chimneys discovered in
Alarcon rise by high resolution bathymetry
from MBARI’s AUV (2012)
3-D visualization of the AUV's individual sonar soundings of the same area.
This visualization is particularly effective for imaging the hydrothermal chimneys
(Dave Caress, MBARI)
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Final Comments
• Sea floor exploration is a 3D endeavor
• Previous multibeam bathymetry is critical for
mission planning
• ROV and AUV’s Log is the main source of
spatial (3D) and instrument data
• Most of data collected is not GIS ready, it has to
be massaged
• Collaborations and technology has enabled us
to explore and map the sea floor, the
unexplored final frontier on Earth.
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Thanks for your
attention
Alejandro Hinojosa
alhinc@cicese.mx
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