Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Loses ROV Nereus on Kermadec Trench Dive

Posted on May 11, 2014

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) lost the ROV Nereus, its deep-diving ROV, in the Kermedec Trench, which is located northeast of New Zealand. The ROV was exploring the trench as part of the NSF-sponsored Hadal Ecosystems Study (HADES) project. The loss of the ROV is explained here on a post by Ken Kostel, entitled "A sad day." The Nereus was over six miles deep when it was lost.

"Our dive last night was the deepest one planned of the entire cruise - 10,000 meters. Six miles. Everything was going fine. Two sets of pushcores were in the sample basket, and we'd recorded nearly two hours of video transects, plus more of individual animals that thrive in the hadal environment at the bottom of the Kermadec Trench. We'd just completed collecting a sea cucumber for the respirometer and were getting Nereus ready to head to the underwater elevator. Then the camera feeds abruptly went dark, and we lost communication with the vehicle."

A news release on the WHOI website says scientists think the Nereus probably imploded during its exploration of the trench. The pressure on the Nereus as great as 16,000 pounds per square inch.

Timothy Shank, a WHOI biologist who helped conceive the vehicle, says in a statement, "Nereus helped us explore places we've never seen before and ask questions we never thought to ask. It was a one-of-a-kind vehicle that even during it's brief life, brought us amazing insights into the unexplored deep ocean, addressing some of the most fundamental scientific problems of our time about life on Earth."

Here is an animation showing how Nereus works:

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