WELLINGTON, May 7 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) starts one of the most challenging scientific underwater experiments ever attempted by NIWA this month on the Chatham Rise, an area of ocean floor to the east of New Zealand.
At least nine separate highly specialized pieces of equipment will be deployed from NIWA's research vessel Tangaroa, in water up to 500 meters deep. The equipment includes an underwater glider, three undersea observational platforms known as benthic landers, a multi-corer to take sediment samples, among others, a NIWA statement said on Monday.
The aim of the voyage is to disturb a small area of the seabed and create a sediment plume using the benthic disturber. The dispersal of the plume will then be monitored, and surveys before and after the disturbance will measure the effects on the seabed animals, it said.
Voyage leader and NIWA principal scientist Malcolm Clark said that some of the equipment has not been tried before in this situation and deploying so many instruments at once is "extraordinarily complex."
"However, this is very important work that will enable us to provide information about the nature and extent of impacts associated with human activities in the deep sea and the level of resilience of the organisms living there," Clark said.
The data collected will be used to build up a picture of how the biological communities on the seabed may be affected by the sediment stirred up by mining or bottom trawl fishing, Clark said.