Prototype maritime autonomy system completes first self-guided voyage

2014 ACTUV Leidos Video from Leidos Inc

Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV)

"Sea Hunter",  an unmanned vessel equipped with a prototype maritime autonomy system has been developed to counter the threat of potential asymmetric attacks.

From Leidos

Leidos, a national security, health, and engineering solutions company, announced today that its prototype maritime autonomy system for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)'s Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program recently completed its first self-guided voyage between Gulfport and Pascagoula, Mississippi.

The prototype maritime autonomy system was installed on a 42-foot work boat that served as a surrogate vessel to test sensor, maneuvering, and mission functions of the prototype ACTUV vessel.

ACTUV seeks to develop an independently deployed, unmanned naval vessel that would operate under sparse remote supervisory control and safely follow the collision avoidance "rules of the sea" known as COLREGS.

A command station allows one operator to monitor the activities of multiple ACTUVs simultaneously

Controlled only by the autonomy system, and with only a navigational chart of the area loaded into its memory and inputs from its commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) radars, the surrogate vessel successfully sailed the complicated inshore environment of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.

Once close to the target, focused sonar takes an acoustic image of the submarine so ACTUV's sophisticated logic can classify it

During its voyage of 35 nautical miles, the maritime autonomy system functioned as designed.
The boat avoided all obstacles, buoys, land, shoal water, and other vessels in the area – all without any preplanned waypoints or human intervention.

While Leidos continues to use the surrogate vessel to test ACTUV software and sensors, the company is continuing construction of Sea Hunter, the first ACTUV prototype vessel, in Clackamas, Oregon.
Sea Hunter is scheduled to launch in late fall 2015 and begin testing in the Columbia River shortly thereafter.

A floating artificial reef would let you walk down into the ocean deep

Biodivercity, Ocean Awareness Zoo

Bustler for more about BIODIVER[CITY].

From Gizmodo by Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan

This month, a grim study in the journal Science reported what we've feared for decades: That the ocean may "be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event," in the words of one author.

There's a colossal amount of work to be done if we want to turn it around—including reclaiming habitats, which is the goal of this ambitious proposal by three young architects. 

 

Of course, one of the best ways we can do this is by reducing carbon emissions and ocean acidification, a horrifying phenomenon in which CO2 is actually changing the chemistry of our oceans to make them toxic to sea life.

 But there are plenty of smaller measures that can help, like the reclamation of habitats for ecosystems that once thrived naturally.

Artificial reefs have been around for centuries, of course, but in this case we're talking about a kind of reef that's built not as a defensive measure for cities or ports, but as a proactive way to help life flourish anew in areas that were once natural habitats. 

These reefs can take a huge range of forms, which is what makes them so cool.

Sea life, like all life, really, is incredibly adaptable and resilient.

Disposing of old subway cars in the ocean creates habitats for marine life and supports recreational fishing.

New York City Transit has provided more than 2,500 retired subway cars to several states along the east coast of the U.S.A. Before the cars are 'buried' at sea, they are stripped of potential environmental contaminants and then steam-cleaned.

Most artificial reefs take the form of sunken industrial remains or old ships, but there are also fascinating aberrations, like Florida's Neptune Reef—which is both a mausoleum for cremated remains and a thriving eco-habitat, as our sister site io9 reported last year—or the artificial reefs created by dumping decommissioned subway cars into the ocean.

And then there's this proposal, from a trio of French and Romanian architects named Quentin Perchet, Thomas Yvon and Zarko Uzlac, who won one of the Jacques Rougerie Foundation's International Architecture Competition laureate awards this week.

Ignore the name—BIODIVER[CITY]—and focus on the renderings, which show a huge floating platform that's accessed via boat on the surface.

Below it, hundreds of tubular struts hand down into the ocean, serving as a place to cling for the coral and other microorganisms that thrive on reefs.  

According to the architects, the idea is to allow visitors to this natural "zoo" to descend deeper into the reef to observe how the ecosystem changes as you move further away from the surface.

At the top, you might see larger mammals like dolphins and small fish, but as you descend into the circular tunnels that hang from the floating mega-structure, you'll see less common species, which the architects describe as "creatures of another time."

 Of course, this is just a concept.

It's easy to imagine that such a structure could have a negative environmental impact—hey, is that a cruise ship in one rendering?!—but it's still an interesting (and beautiful) take on an idea that needs as much public support as it can get. 

Another more realistic new development in this fight comes from a group of marine biologists who argue that the mega-structures that can promote habitat reclamation already exist in the ocean—in the form of our aging oil rigs.

In some cases, they argue, rich ecosystems already exist beneath the surface of these hulking steel machines, and they ought to be left standing in place to benefit the sea life that's already sprung up around them.

Links :

• Gizmodo : The Plan to Turn Our Aging Oil Rigs Into Skyscraper-Sized Reef

How the fishermen of a tiny Irish island tackled the EU's big bureaucracy

Fishing for a future (Euronews)

Will Europe manage to save its fish stocks?

And what will happen to the fishermen?

Do Irish fishermen have a future?

From Worldcrunch by Eric Albert

The battle is not totally over, and total victory remains uncertain.
But the fishermen from Arranmore have managed to make Brussels sway.
This handful of diehard Irish fishermen is slowly managing to lift Europe’s fishing ban, which has been stifling the economy of this remote island for the past seven years.
Arranmore is located off the coast of northwestern Ireland.
The wind here is merciless, and a good many boats have been crushed on the reefs surrounding it. Fishing has traditionally been the main source of work here, and it is the heart of life on this 22-square-kilometer island.
Things changed dramatically when in 2006, following a directive from the Brussels-based European Commission, Dublin decided to ban salmon fishing in a bid to stop the decline of fish stocks.
Another bill two years later outlawed all net fishing around the country, in a zone nicknamed “VIa.” The ban affected numerous species, including cod and whiting, allowing only the fishing of crabs and lobsters.

 Arranmore island aerial view

The sea as a unique resource

The Irish government was offering fishermen all over the country financial compensation. Most of them accepted, but not on Arranmore.
Along with its neighbors of the islands of Tory and Inisbofin, Arranmore rebelled against the authorities, refusing to sign a declaration stating they would stop fishing salmon forever.
The proposed government deal was unacceptable for the strapping Neily Kavenagh.
Despite his short and snappy sentences, the 48-year-old fisherman struggles to find words that are strong enough to condemn this attempt to “buy [him] off.”
“They offered me 40,000 euros ($54,000). It’s a lot of money. But my dad got this salmon fishing license in the 1950s. I wanted to pass it on to my own child,” he says.
The fishermen came together in 2007.
Hugh Rodgers, one of the group’s leaders, remembers it as if it were yesterday.
“We managed to convince everybody save one not to accept the compensation,” he recalls.
“For us, it was self-evident. We have no factories, and tourists come only in summer. The sea is our own resource. It should be for the locals, and we should have the right to reap our own harvest.”

 Arranmore fishing boat

In 7 years, the number of operating boats dropped 40% on Arranmore

An “attack” on Arranmore’s life

The Arranmore fishermen use traditional methods and say they have nothing to do with the drop in fish populations.
Because their boats are scarcely over 15 meters long (50 feet), they hardly venture into the open sea.
On the other hand, they saw an armada of factory boats — mainly from Spain, Holland and France — coming just a few kilometers from their coast after they had bought Irish fishing rights.
“These guys can keep working the way they do far from the coast, even today,” Kavenagh says angrily.
“As for us, we have nothing left.”
For him, the fishing ban is an “attack” on the very life of Arranmore.
The island inhabitants have asked for a protection similar to that of an oppressed minority.

 Arranmore island with the Marine GeoGarage (UKHO chart)

On the small island, the ban’s impact was rapidly felt.
In seven years, as the few rusty wrecks in the harbor show, the number of operating boats dropped 40%.
The population fell from 768 to 487.
A hotel, a pub and three shops have closed.
One of the two primary schools only has 12 pupils left and its days are probably numbered.
“If it goes on like this, there will be nothing on Arranmore in 10 years,” says a worried Loïc Jourdain. The French director has been filming the island’s revolt from the beginning and is working on a documentary expected to be released in 2014.
Having followed the fishermen for so long, he remembers their face-to-face meetings with politicians and lobbyists.
“A lot of them went to Brussels and Dublin to pressure the authorities. Even the priest, a very influential man, went along with them.”
Little by little, they were joined in their fight by other European islands, and the balance started to shift in their favor.

“I will violate the law before I give up on fishing”

In the last few months, the fishermen have won their first victories.
In May, the European reform of the common fisheries policy recognized the importance of protecting local communities as well as the fish.
The new directive supports small-scale fishing less than 12 nautical miles from the coast.
The Irish government has also agreed to loosen bans on the “VIa” zone.
By November, new licenses are to be given to boats under 15 meters long (50 feet).
But no changes are afoot for salmon fishing, even though it is the most economically constraining ban.
Though Deputy Prime Minister Eamon Gilmore had indicated support for the fishermen when he was in the opposition, since he entered the government in 2011 he has been silent on this issue.
On Arranmore, the fishermen keep saying they won’t give up.
They have vowed to keep the pressure up, as they believe it’s their only chance for the island and its residents to survive.
In a cold and determined voice, Neily Kavenagh warns, “I will violate the law before I give up on fishing.”

Links :

• Le Monde (in French) : Arranmore, l’île des irréductibles pêcheurs irlandais
• RTE : Survival of an island (audio)
• TheJournalIE : A super trawler (Margiris) banned from Australia is back in Irish waters

US NOAA update in the Marine GeoGarage

As our public viewer is not yet available
(currently under construction, upgrading to a new viewer
as Google Maps API v2 is officially no more supported),
this info is primarily intended to our universal mobile application users
(Marine US iPhone-iPad on the Apple Store &
Weather 4D Android -App-in- on the PlayStore)
and also to our B2B customers which use our nautical charts layers
in their own webmapping applications through our GeoGarage API. 

 NOAA raster chart coverage

41 charts have been updated in the Marine GeoGarage

(NOAA update January 2015, released January 20th 2015)

• 11402 ed23 Intracoastal Waterway Apalachicola Bay to Lake Wimico
• 11489 ed40 Intracoastal Waterway St. Simons Sound to Tolmato River
• 11490 ed21 Approaches to St. Johns River;St. Johns River Entrance
• 11491 ed39 St. Johns River-Atlantic Ocean to Jacksonville
• 11536 ed20 Approaches to Cape Fear River
• 12286 ed32 Potomac River Piney Point to Lower Cedar Point
• 13278 ed29 Portsmouth to Cape Ann; Hampton Harbor
• 13303 ed14 Approaches to Penobscot Bay
• 13323 ed9 Bar Harbor Mount Desert Island
• 14810 ed6 Olcott Harbor to Toronto (Metric);Olcott and Wilson Harbors
• 14965 ed23 Redridge to Saxon Harbor;Ontonagon harbor;Black River Harbor;Saxon Harbor
• 16041 ed9 Demarcation Bay and approaches
• 16042 ed8 Griffin Pt. and approaches
• 16043 ed8 Barter Island and approaches;Bernard Harbor
• 16044 ed8 Camden Bay and Approaches
• 16045 ed8 Bullen Pt. to Brownlow Pt.
• 16046 ed8 McClure and Stockton Islands and vicinity
• 16061 ed9 Prudhoe Bay and vicinity
• 16062 ed8 Jones Islands and approaches
• 16063 ed8 Harrison Bay-eastern part
• 16064 ed7 Harrison Bay-western part
• 16065 ed7 Cape Halkett and vicinity
• 16066 ed8 Pitt Pt. and vicinity
• 16067 ed8 Approaches to Smith Bay
• 16081 ed8 Scott Pt. to Tangent Pt.
• 16082 ed8 Pt. Barrow and vicinity
• 16083 ed7 Skull Cliff and vicinity
• 16084 ed8 Peard Bay and approaches
• 16085 ed7 Wainwright Inlet to Atainik
• 16086 ed8 Nakotlek Pt. to Wainwright
• 16087 ed8 Icy Cape to Nokotlek Pt.
• 16088 ed6 Utukok Pass to Blossom Shoals
• 16101 ed7 Pt. Lay and approaches
• 16102 ed6 Kuchiak River to Kukpowruk Pass
• 16103 ed6 Cape Beaufort
• 16104 ed6 Cape Sabine
• 16121 ed6 East of Cape Lisburne
• 16122 ed6 Cape Dyer to Cape Lisburge
• 16123 ed7 Point Hope to Cape Dyer
• 16124 ed7 Cape Thompson to Point Hope
• 16594 ed14 Marmot Bay and Kupreanof Strait;Whale Passage;Ouzinkie Harbor

Today 1026 NOAA raster charts (2168 including sub-charts) are included in the Marine GeoGarage viewer (see PDFs files)


How do you know if you need a new nautical chart?
See the changes in new chart editions.
NOAA chart dates of recent Print on Demand editions

Note : NOAA updates their nautical charts with corrections published in:

• U.S. Coast Guard Local Notices to Mariners (LNMs),
• National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Notices to Mariners (NMs), and
• Canadian Coast Guard Notices to Mariners (CNMs)

While information provided by this Web site is intended to provide updated nautical charts, it must not be used as a substitute for the United States Coast Guard, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, or Canadian Coast Guard Notice to Mariner publications

Please visit the NOAA's chart update service for more info or the online chart catalog

The secrets of the shelf seas – one of Earth’s most important ecosystems

 Children of the Tide - Microscopic life in the ocean
This science/art video presents the rarely-filmed embryo and larval development of common marine invertebrates during the first few weeks of their lives as "Children of the Tide".

Mostly filmed under a microscope using a "dark field" lighting technique.

This 8 minute version is cut down from the original 24 minute version that was distributed to marine science centers and schools.

Filmed at Friday Harbor Laboratories (Washington, USA) and Vancouver Island, Canada. 

From The Guardian by Rebecca Bell 

The sea off our coasts teems with microscopic life that breaks down the carbon dioxide we pump into the air.

Now a series of expeditions aims to find out more

Our coastal seas play a much bigger role in our lives than simply providing a nice backdrop to a fish and chip supper on the beach and the occasional paddle when the weather allows.
The sea close to the coastline is known as the shelf sea and it extends out until the seabed reaches a depth of 200 metres.
In the UK our widest shelf sea reaches 300km from the mainland.
These shallow shelf seas make up only 5% of the world’s oceans but 15-20% of all life in the ocean lives here.
They remain mysterious.
“We are not entirely sure how the shelf seas can sustain quite so much biological growth,” says Professor Jonathan Sharples from the University of Liverpool.
“They must receive nutrients from the deep ocean to fuel this growth, but we don’t know how this happens.”
Whatever the reason, these shallow seas sustain 90% of the world’s fisheries and are one of the most important ecosystems on Earth.

As well as helping to supply our national dish, these shelf seas play an important but not completely understood role in controlling the levels of CO₂ in the atmosphere.
In the same way as trees and vegetation on land, shelf seas can suck out CO₂ from the atmosphere like a pump.
There are two parts to the shelf sea CO₂-zapping machine.
“First, CO₂ dissolves in the surface of the ocean if the concentration of CO₂ in the sea is less than in the atmosphere,” says Dr Joanne Hopkins from the National Oceanography Centre.
“You could think of this as the reverse of bubbles escaping when you open a fizzy drinks bottle – because the concentration of CO₂ in the air is less than in the bottle.”
The other important part of the system is the micro-organisms themselves, which the shelf seas are teeming with.

Plankton from Parafilms

 New videography techniques have opened up the oceans' microscopic ecosystem, revealing it to be both mesmerizingly beautiful and astoundingly complex.

Marine biologist Tierney Thys teamed with Christian Sardet (CNRS/Tara Oceans), Noé Sardet and Sharif Mirshak to use footage from the Plankton Chronicles project to create a film designed to ignite wonder and curiosity about this hidden world that underpins our own food chain.

If you were to take a swim in the sea and accidentally gulp some water you would swallow thousands of micro-organisms called plankton, which amazingly, given their minute size, are a crucial food source for whales.
There are two types of plankton: phytoplankton (tiny marine plants) and zooplankton (tiny marine animals).
One thousand of the smallest phytoplankton would measure 1mm, while typical zooplankton are 1-5mm in length.
Plankton make sea water look murky and this biological material is rather romantically known as “marine snow”.
As phytoplankton grow they take up CO₂ and convert it to organic carbon and oxygen, in the same way as a leaf does by photosynthesis.
“Half of the oxygen we breathe comes from forests, the other half from these tiny marine plants,” says Sharples.
“The zooplankton then eat the organic carbon that the phytoplankton are made of."

“The oceans remove about one-third of the total carbon we put into the atmosphere each year by burning fossil fuels, and shelf seas play a disproportionately high role because of their high biological activity,” says Dr Louise Darroch from the British Oceanographic Data Centre. “We want to understand how plankton extract CO₂ from the atmosphere and how their ability to remove CO₂ may be sensitive to changes in our climate.”

 Phytoplankton

In order to tackle this important question, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs have funded a project called Shelf Sea Biogeochemistry which will take measurements throughout shelf seas in a number of expeditions over the next year.
Sharples, Hopkins and Darroch returned from one of these surveys just before Christmas.
“Our research expedition took us to the Celtic Sea aboard the UK’s newest research vessel, the RRS Discovery,” says Sharples.
“The expedition was 25 days long with no sight of land. The ship carries 50 people, roughly half of them scientists and half crew. At 100 metres long, the ship is capable of working in most weathers, though seasickness can be a bit of a problem for the first few days as we all get used to the motion.”

The research involved measuring the concentration of nutrients and organic material in the water, collection of sediment from the seafloor and monitoring changes in the temperature and saltiness of the water.
A range of instruments was used – including autonomous gliders that measure temperature and water turbulence, and are controlled remotely by someone sitting comfortably onshore – as well as “snowcatchers”.

“Snowcatchers are huge plastic tubes, as tall as a room and one metre in diameter, that are lowered beneath the sea surface to a particular depth where they are closed, capturing the water around them along with all the marine snow floating in it,” says Hopkins.
Once up on deck, scientists can investigate how plankton – and importantly, zooplankton faeces – can settle.

Plankton of the French Riviera from Parafilms

“Particles in the ocean sink, taking with them lots of carbon that was removed from the atmosphere. It’s what happens to these particles and the carbon they carry that forms the basis of a large component of our work,” says Darroch.
If organic material sinks quickly, the carbon reaches the seabed before dissolving, and under the right conditions it can be locked up long-term in the deep marine realm.
If undisturbed it will remain there, and this is how fossil fuels form – if the right conditions prevail over millions of years.

Studies like this will provide a better understanding of how much CO₂ is removed from the atmosphere in shelf seas today.
Once we know this we can more effectively model how future changes in climate will affect this ecosystem, and the waters that we rely on so heavily for energy, food and recreation.

Links :

• GeoGarage blog : The secret life of plankton / Small miniatures : the secret life of marine microfaunia / Velella, "by-the-wind sailors"
• NOAA Flickr : Foundation of the food ocean