Posted on 02/04/2025 9:08:08 AM PST by Red Badger
Alvin sampling a hydrothermal vent in 2021. Photo: WHOI-MISO, D. Fornari, S. A. Soule, WHOI/NSF/2022, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
The Alvin submersible is now capable of diving to 21,325 feet (6,500 meters), putting 99% of the ocean floor within its reach.
Alvin’s upgrade has been in the works for over four years, with its last iteration completed in 2021. The veteran submersible can now dive nearly 6,700 feet (2,000 meters) deeper than before, enabling scientists to explore the ocean’s most abyssal recesses.
“The new maximum depth puts roughly 98-99% of the global seafloor in reach —including the lower Abyssal Zone and the upper Hadal Zone, home to ultra-high-temperature hydrothermal vents, newly discovered volcanic processes, untold mineral resources, and much more,” said Anna Michel, chief scientist of the National Deep Submergence Facility, which operates Alvin, in an emailed statement.
Alvin is a human-operated vehicle, or HOV, setting it apart from autonomously underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). It can be crewed by two people and dive for up to 10 hours at a time, and up to 30 days in a row before requiring scheduled maintenance.
You may remember the intrepid craft for its visit to the wreck of Titanic in 1986. The vehicle has been in operation since 1964, making it over 60 years old, and has been overhauled and updated multiple times in its tenure.
As reported by Eos, the Alvin team conducted a set of dives in summer 2022 to test out the submersible’s latest upgrades. All six dives were successful, showcasing that the vehicle could indeed dive thousands of feet deeper than before.
Components of Alvin’s design, including its titanium personnel sphere, were completed back in 2012, but beginning in 2020 a slew of other upgrades began. Engineers endowed the old sub with new ballast spheres, a new manipulator arm, upgraded hydraulics, a 4K imaging system, and brand new thrusters.
“This also gives the science community an unprecedented opportunity to visit a critically under-studied part of the planet that plays a role in carbon and nutrient cycling and that will offer a view into how life might be evolved to conditions in oceans beyond Earth,” Michel added. Indeed, life at the ocean’s depths is a hint at how life might look should it exist in subsurface oceans on moons like Europa or Enceladus.
The deep sea is filled with biodiversity, much of which looks strange compared to life on land. Consider the glowing nudibranch identified late last year, after mystifying scientists with its perplexing structure for over a quarter century. Alvin’s new depth certification will enable scientists to see more of the creatures and hydrological systems that make up the alien world at the bottom of the sea.
You can read about Alvin’s incredible history here, in a story celebrating the submersible’s 60th anniversary.
Alvin, Simon, and Theodore; but don’t forget Dave Seville.
There are subs that can make that trip, plus, snoozers. :^) Now, if they found a Rolex down there...
20,000 X 3 = 60,000.............
Marianas Trench... Pacific Ocean... Gilligan’s Island... uh, never mind...
Or the renowned Chinese Cardboardium.
Funny, as a kid, I always thought “20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea(s)” referred to the depth, which of course makes no sense, since it’s only about 1326 leagues to the center of the earth.
I guess it referred to traveling all over the place while underwater - the plural “Seas” should have given it away. LOL
You know, I noticed that, too.
Sorry.
One source:
a nautical mile is equal to 1.151 statute miles. Or put another way a nautical mile equals 6076.12 feet. So 20,000 leagues = 60,000 nautical miles = 69,060 statute miles.
Another.
20,000 metric leagues (80,000 km, over 40,000 nautical miles), nearly twice the circumference of the Earth.
A league is 4,828.03 meters, approximately 3 miles.
20,000 leagues equal about 60,000 miles as you said.
There’s British and US difference as well................
Cleaning out my Mom’s house three years ago, I found in a folder of an eight page report on Alvin I did in fourth grade in the 60’s. Included was a drawing of Alvin and it’s support ship.
Leagues are a measure of length, not depth.
The distance varies from 1.4 to 4.9 miles.
So, 20,000 leagues under the sea could be between 28.,000 and 98,000 miles.
I know.
I’ve worked with two ex Alvin pilots. Both remarkable people.
Steve held the hardhat diving record for a while. His brother was Provost at Stanford. (like Condi Rice)
Nope.
But how many leagues under the sea?
Or video game controllers
“a measure of length, not depth.”
Hmmm, if we can’t measure depth as length, do we measure is as width?
See Animation of the effects of implosion on a voxel based human body
(for the happy results when this thing implodes around and through you.)
This one wasn’t designed by a DEI engineering team. Straight white men built this baby. It’ll do just fine.
I think the Trieste went down the Marianas trench.
Surprisingly versatile for a unit of measure.
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