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July 2018: COVIS headed back into the water.  A refurbished COVIS complete with new 200kHz head will be deployed at ASHES vent field on Axial Volcano in late July or early August.  COVIS will be connected to the NSF Ocean Observatories Initiative's Cabled Array.
 
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September 2015: The end of COVIS's time at NEPTUE.  COVIS was sucessfully recovered from the seafloor and is undergoing repairs and refurbishment.  Plans for redeployment are in consideration with location and science objectives to be determined.
 
<pictures coming!>
 
August 2015: Data collection ceases.  Communications with sonar have become irractic so data collection is ceased.
 
March 2015: Changing modes. Lost communications with too many motors. Data collection reduced to just Diffuse mode.  But this is an opportunity to collect the Diffuse mode data much more rapidly and capture temporally faster changes. Yeah.
 
Feb 2015: COVIS is still working despite everything.  We have over 4 years of data at present with relatively few gaps after the first big one. 
 
June 2014: Symposium honors Peter Rona.  Dozens of marine scientists gathered at Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers to hear talks on up-and-coming research in marine sciences and talks celebrating Peter's many contributions to marine science research and education. Peter Rona died in February 2014.  We will miss him very much.
 
Sep 2013: One year of data! Hooray, Hooray!
One year ago (from September 26, 2012) COVIS was powered back on after replacement of the malfunctioning Neptune Canada MEF extension cable.  COVIS collected about a month of data before the cable failure and was then unpowered for 11 months while waiting for the cable to be replaced.  It is my pleasure to announce that COVIS has been collecting data continuously for 1 year since 9/26/11 and has archived a once every 3 hour time series of acoustic imaging/doppler of the Grotto hydrothermal vent system at MEF.  This data is now accessible on-line via the Neptune Canada Data Search engine.  NSF has just recently funded the science team to begin a rigorous study of this data set (and future data) to further our understanding of the geophysical properties of hydrothermal vent systems and to further refine our data processing techniques.
 
June 2012: Cool once in a lifetime image:
COVIS caught ROPOS in the act of investigating the site of BARS, TEMPO-Mini, and RAS on the shoulder of Grotto Vent in the Main Endeavour Field.  This regularly scheduled acoustic image clearly shows the locations of the two plumes and the floats above RAS as well as ROPOS just before the beginning of the spring maintenance.
 
 
Jan 2012: See movies of the seafloor hydrothermal plumes: data from COVIS
Three time series movies (October, November and December 2012; MPEG-4 format; play using Quicktime) of acoustic images made by our COVIS (Cabled Observatory Vent Imaging Sonar of black smoker plumes discharging from the Grotto mound in the NEPTUNE Canada Cabled Observatory on the Endeavour segment of the Juan de Fuca Ridge (credit: Michael Kenney, Applied Physics laboratory-University of Washington). The images show the initial tens of meters of buoyant rise of the plumes from clusters of black smoker on the Grotto mound. The plumes alternately bend to the northeast and to the southwest driven by the prevalent mixed semi-diurnal tidal cycle.
(Please refresh browser if video does not load)

 

 
 
 

AGU 2011:
To read the following posters presented at AGU 2011 please click on the respective image.
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Title: Collaborative Research: Acoustic Instrumentation for Imaging and Quantifying Hydrothermal Flow in NEPTUNE Canada Regional Cabled

Observatory at Main Endeavour Field, JdFR
Annual Report for Period:11/2010 - 10/2011
 
For a copy of the report click here: Annual NSF Report 10-11 (PDF)
 

 
SUBJECT: COVIS (Cabled Observatory Vent Imaging Sonar) Project Annual Report 
Report Period Year 1: 1 November 2008 to 31 October 2009 
PROJECT TITLE: Collaborative Research (Applied Physics Laboratory-University of Washington and Rutgers University) Acoustic Instrumentation for Imaging and Quantifying Hydrothermal Flow in NEPTUNE Canada Regional Cabled Observatory at Main Endeavour Field, Juan de Fuca Ridge
 
REPORT INTRODUCTION:
Collaborative Research Objective: This is a collaborative project between the Applied Physics Lab-University of Washington (Russ Light, PI, APL-UW) supported by NSF grant 0824612 and Rutgers University (Peter Rona, Co-PI) supported by NSF grant 0825088:
1) Develop a sonar system to image flow from seafloor hydrothermal vents (COVIS= Cabled Observatory Vent Imaging Sonar): APL-UW, period 1 November 2008 to summer 2010. RESON sonar system purchased.
2) Test and connect the sonar to the NEPTUNE Canada seafloor cabled observatory: APL-UW, scheduled for summer 2010
3) Initiate imaging of hydrothermal flow at a vent cluster in the Main Endeavour Field on the Juan de Fuca Ridge through the NEPTUNE Canada Oceans-2 DMAS (Data Management and Archiving System) to the user community with near real time quick-look plume images: Rutgers and APL-UW with NEPTUNE Canada, scheduled for summer 2010 (contingent on system preparation). Software under development.
 
The annual report consists of two sections:
I Applied Physics Laboratory-University of Washington, Russ Light, PI
II. Rutgers University, Peter Rona, Co-PI
 
 
For a copy of the complete report please click here: Annual NSF Report 08-09 (pdf)

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