Project gallery details
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| Deep sea HD video system |
| The surveillance of deep sea habitats or gear is strongly improved by the in house development of a new High Definition camera system suspended in a hopper frame. Using the new fiber optic cable on the Pelagia we are now able to view live HD video recordings in real-time. |
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| New HD video system in the hopper frame |
| Ultra clean PRISTINE water sampler | |
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Novel butterfly-valve type ultraclean samplers have been developed and constructed using ultraclean PVDF plastic manufactured in an ultraclean factory in Austria (www.georgfischer.at). The samplers are closed when passing through the ocean surface and next open at subsurface. The opening is very large for excellent flow-through during downcast and up cast. Teflon valves for sub sampling are placed at lowest position to ensure draining complete sampler including settling particles. The top valve can be connected to gas pressure for pressure filtration at bottom sub sampling valve. |
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| The 24 samplers of 27 Litres each are mounted on an all-titanium frame deployed with a new Kevlar hydrowire cable with internal signal cables. This allows for the rapid ultraclean sampling of the deep oceans for concentrations of trace metal elements aluminum, manganese, iron, cobalt, copper, nickel, zinc, silver, cadmium, platinum and lead (Fe, Mn, Al, Co, Cu, Ni, Zn, Ag, Cd, Pt, Pb), as well as the stable isotope systematics of several such trace metals, notably iron, copper, zinc, cadmium and lead (Fe, Cu, Zn, Cd, Pb). Almost all of these trace metal elements are involved in the ocean biological cycle, several directly as bio-essential trace element for every living organism (notably Fe, Mn, Co, Cu, Ni, Zn) and many others by mechanisms yet to be unraveled in the GEOTRACES program. | |
| Deep sea Kevlar winch | |
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Extensive overhaul and installation of new Hi Tech Kevlar cable During the 2008 overhaul of the winch the time was restricted because of its tight operational deployment scheme. The mid life upgrade of the RV Pelagia at a shipyard in Spain created the possibility to realize a vast number of undone repairs and modifications. |
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| Deep Sea Kevlar Cable winch: almost all parts disassembled | Deep Sea Kevlar Cable winch: after the overhaul |
| Measuring pole IN PLACE | |
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For the INPLACE project a Wadden Sea observatory will be created app. 3 km east of Den Helder. An extensive instrumentation suit had to be incorporated in the design. The observatory will have an online bidirectional radio data link to NIOZ. |
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IN PLACE Wadden Sea observatory with solar panels, instruments and cabinets for control units |
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| Instrument suit able to follow the sea level | A sea level responsive ‘Christmas tree’ of sensors |
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| Drilling the pole base in the sea floor (December 2010) |
The instruments are mounted and connected to the control cabinet |
| A-frame for GEOTRACE cruise |
| The Southern Atlantic trajectory of the GEOTRACE cruise will be carried out - by OFEG ship barter arrangements - on board of the British RV James Cook. For this cruise the NIOZ Kevlar Cabled Clean winch was a prerequisite. After extensive operational considerations it was concluded to design and construct a special A-frame |
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| High accuracy calibration tank |
| In the physics department very accurate thermistor strings are being used to study the subsea dynamics such as internal waves. Calibrating these thermistors down to 1 mK (0.001 °C) was usually done at sea, in temperature stable layers in the deep. In practice this often resulted in a limited calibration range of 5 to 7 °C. In the newly designed and constructed 80 liter calibration tank a calibration range from -2 °C to 30 °C is created, at a stability of 1 mK. |
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| Modular laboratories for Netherlands Antarctic program | |
| In order to improve the facilities for Dutch scientists working in the Antarctic, NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research) will establish a Dutch Science Facility in collaboration with the British Antarctic Survey at their Antarctic base Rothera. Because of its extensive experience with building containerized seagoing laboratories, NIOZ was approached to be partner in building these labs. Four of the 20 foot container labs will be placed in a protective envelope. In 2010 the planning and engineering of the project started. Three labs were built in 2011 and extensively tested in a special climate testing facility at temperatures down to -25 °C, simulating the harsh Antarctica environment. | |
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| Dutch Science Facility at Rothera Antarctica: protective shed with roller shutter doors for four 20' labs | |
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| Minus 25°C climate testing facility | Press moment |
| New double capstan winch for mooring operations | |
| During mooring cruises on British vessels from NERC the effective use of a dedicated double capstan winch was experienced by our scientists and technicians. NIOZ purchased a copy of this Lebus winch in order to improve our mooring operations. | |
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 The winch installed on a 20' flat rack together with a spooling winch and a hydraulic power pack |
| New Bottom Lander Test Basin | |
| Near the NIOZ workshops, a basin was constructed for testing deep sea equipment. With a 5*5*5 m3 dimension, it may accomodate larger equipment such as the MOVE and other bottom landers. After its construction the bottom lander test basin was finalized with the installation of a water treatment installation. Now it is ready to use for testing bottom landers and other seagoing instruments and equipment. | |
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| High tech Kevlar cable for deep sea winch |
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Our research vessel 'Pelagia'is equipped with a special deep sea winch with a non-metallic cable for work down to 8000 m. It is used for for a wide number of applications, such as piston coring, box coring, multi coring, ultra clean CTD-sampling, video surveys, video guided sampling, video guided deployment of landers and towed vehicles. The cable of this NIOZ work horse, was due for replacement. One of the major aspects of the new cable was the addition of optical fibres in a gel filled pressure resistant stainless steel tube.
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| Towed instrument torpedo | |
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Because of the international Darwin year, Darwin's famous Beagle round-the-world cruise, that led to his famous publication "On the origin of species", was repeated on the 3 mast sailing clipper "Stad Amsterdam". For continuous monitoring of several scientific parameters a towed, on-line measuring torpedo was designed and constructed. |
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| Fast responding high accuracy Thermistorstring, model #4 | |
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During the development of advanced instruments new opportunities can arise, generating possibilities for improved versions of the instrument. Our thermistor string consists of a 100 m length cable connecting 200 inductively coupled high accuracy temperature sensors for visualizing internal ('underwater') waves. This thermistor string has been recently upgraded, now featuring decreased energy consumption, smaller dimensions,improved accuracy by a factor of 2 and a XYZ-tilt sensor, enabling the reconstruction of the shape of the mooring line. |
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