Robot submarine dives deep for first mission

Autosub6000, the UK’s deepest-diving robot submarine, has successfully completed its first science mission in the deep Atlantic Ocean.

Autosub6000 operates with no connecting wires and no pilot

The mission formed part of a research expedition investigating potential threats from tsunamis, giant landslides and earthquakes to coastal communities along the west European margin.
The leader of the Autosub6000 team Steve McPhail, from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, said: “We are very happy with the performance of the AUV and the quality of the images it obtained, following its first ever survey of the deep ocean. Autosub6000 is a completely autonomous robot: there are no connecting wires with the ship and no pilot. Once programmed, it dived down to the ocean floor and completed its mission without any further intervention.”
The sub was released from the research vessel RRS James Cook and sent almost three miles below the surface to investigate a submarine canyon north of the Canary Islands. Upon its return to the surface, some 24 hours later, the vehicle provided scientists with spectacular three-dimensional images showing holes in the seafloor the size of a football stadium. These holes were formed by giant submarine flows that ripped up huge volumes of seafloor sediment and carried the material up to 1,000km further offshore.

Chief Scientist on RRS James Cook Dr Russell Wynn, said: “This new technology is allowing us to image the seafloor in unprecedented detail, and is providing valuable information about the huge scale and immense power of these giant submarine flows.”
The robot submarine executed a so-called ‘lawnmower survey’, flying 100m above seabed, while surveying the 16km2 area in 200m wide strips with its high-resolution multibeam echosounder.
Autosub6000’s next mission is off the Portuguese coast, where it will search for submarine evidence of the devastating 1755 Lisbon earthquake. The earthquake killed over 10,000 people, and generated a tsunami that even reached southwest England. Dr Wynn said that a repeat event is geologically possible at any time, but stressed that more data are required before the threat can be accurately assessed: “The Lisbon earthquake was one of Europe's worst natural disasters, and we hope that new data from the deep ocean will provide information about the potential future threat to coastal communities.”