Eternal Darkness by Robert Ballard by Grayson Harwood

On the morning of May 24th, 2001, a team of engineers, marine biologists and explorers set out on a journey aboard the Kilo Moana to the marianas trench. The goal of this expedition is to reach the bottom of the deepest trench in the ocean, otherwise known as Challenger Deep. “How is this possible?”, you might ask yourself. Engineer, Andy Bowen, asked himself the same question in 1998. He then decided to build a ROV, or remotely operated vehicle, capable of such a feat. He named the ROV Nereus, after a greek demigod that was half man, half fish. Nereus is capable of withstanding up to 13,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. That’s nearly 8 TONS of pressure. Nereus isn’t the first ROV of its kind though, before Nereus, there was Kaiko, which was too expensive and too heavy to succeed in its mission. Nereus is nearly a quarter of the weight and a tenth as expensive to build and operate, making it much better to use.

The first trip that Nereus took in the trench was over 9000 meters below the ocean surface. It’s connected to a fiber optic cable which is connected to the ship and can travel for miles in any direction while still being attached. After it has finished its mission it simply cuts its cable and floats back to the top using pre installed floatation devices. While it was over 9000 meters down the camera on the Nereus captured unusual new species of tapeworms and collected samples, it also found a new species of sea anemones and sea cucumbers. The way these creatures survive at these depths without sunlight is a process called chemosynthesis. The team successfully identified 13 new species.

The next trip to was to the very bottom of the ocean, at the bottom of Challenger Deep, nearly 11,000 meters down. It took Nereus 8 hours to reach the bottom. The first discovery made was a polychaete. A polychaete is a deep sea worm creature. The robotic claw was unable to capture the polychaete unfortunately. Next, it found solid rocks. During this expedition Nereus actually got stuck under a rock, but the pilot of the ROV was thankfully able to manuever it out of harm. It later returned safely to the surface with a sample of sediment and a rock.

The crew was ecstatic with the success of the missions and has already filed for a petition for another expedition in coming years. The mission took place in 2001, so hopefully since such a long time has passed and the first mission was such a success, a new expedition will take place within the next few years.

]]>