Deep Profiler Moorings

A modifed McLane profiler is clamped to the Deep Profiler Vertical Mooring, installed during the VISIONS’14 expedtition. Photo Credit: Ed McNichol, © 2014 Mumbian Enterprises, Inc., University of Washington. V14.

The Deep Profiler moorings are single-cabled, vertical moorings that host an instrumented, modified McLane wire-following vehicle that measures ocean properties from ~2900 m to ~ 150 m water depth. The McLane profiler vehicle, modified by the UW Applied Physics Laboratory to meet Regional Cabled Array science requirements, transits the cable at 25 cm a second. Power and data transfer are provided to the Deep Profiler vehicle via an inductive couple at a basal docking station. Data are transmitted through WiFi, as well as through the cabled docking station during battery recharge.

The Deep Profiler hosts five instruments and moves through the water column along the mooring cable, continuously sampling ocean characteristics over a specified depth interval (150 meters below sea surface to near bottom). An extension cable running from a low-power junction box provides up to 375 V and 1Gbs communications to the following instruments: CTD, oxygen, 3-D single point current meter-temperature, a CDOM fluorometer, and a two-wavelength chlorophyll-a/optical backscatter fluorometer.

The newly deployed deep profiler at Axial Base during dive J2-1091. Credit: UW/NSF-OOI/WHOI, V18.

The Regional Cabled Array includes cabled mooring sites at the base of the subduction zone (Slope Base – 2900 m), on the Oregon Margin (OR Endurance Offshore – 600 m) and at the base of Axial Seamount (Axial Base – 2700 m). Each site hosts a cabled Deep Profiler and a Shallow Winched Profiler Mooring. Live command and control capabilities occur at the UW Operations Center and real-time data is streamed to the UW RCA Operations Center and into the OOI Data Portal. The moorings are designed to measure global and local currents, megaplumes, ocean chemistry (e.g., pH, CO2, nutrients), heat flux, thin layers, and biological parameters (e.g., zooplankton time series distribution and chlorophyll).