An action shot of the modified McLane Deep Profiler at the Axial Base site crawling up the mooring wire. The yellow profiler vehicle climbs up and down the mooring wire between the seafloor and the top buoy, collecting oceanographic data on thin layers in the water column.
Photo Credit: NSF-OOI/UW/CSSF, Dive 1742, V14
The Deep Profiler at Axial Base docked in its charging station at the bottom of the mooring. The yellow profiler vehicle climbs up and down the mooring wire between the seafloor and the top buoy, collecting oceanographic data on thin layers in the water column.
Photo Credit: NSF-OOI/UW/CSSF, Dive 1742, VISIONS14
The Deep Profiler vertical mooring hosts an instrumented deep wire crawler (McLane) that measures ocean properties from ~3000 m to ~ 200 m water depth. Power and data transfer are provided via an inductive couple. The following instruments are included on the Deep Profiler: CTD, Dissolved Oxygen, 3-D Single Point Current Meter -Temperature, and Fluorometers (CDOM, Chlorophyll-a, Optical Backscatter).
There are three installations planned for the Deep Profiler Vertical Moorings during VISIONS '14. They are each paired with a Shallow Profiler Mooring and a Seafloor Instrument Array at three Sites: at the base of the Cascadia Margin (Slope Base), in shallower waters along the Oregon margin west of Newport (Endurance Array), and at the base of Axial Seamount near PN3A. During Leg 2 of VISIONS'14, a Deep Profiler mooring was installed at PN3A, and successfully tested (engineering and science data downloaded) using the ROV ROPOS.