Page 36: of Marine Technology Magazine (September 2015)

Ocean Observation (UK) and the University of Copenhagen (DK), will take the facts from decompression, we will i) determine rates of ben- innovative step of studying and sampling deep-sea organisms thic metabolism and the importance of the deep trenches for in their own environment (in-situ). To achieve this, the Hades the marine carbon and nitrogen cycle, ii) explore the unique project requires two purpose-built robots, a pro? ling lander benthic microbial communities driving these processes, and and sediment sampler (which will have two different modes), iii) investigate the proposed great role of virus in regulating to operate at depths of up to 11 kilometres in cold, corrosive microbial performance in hadal sediments.“ conditions, withstanding pressures reaching 1100 bar. Various Previous expeditions such as the Mariana Trench in 2010, components for the new robots are being produced around the have revealed surprisingly high levels of biological activity world before ? nally being assembled at University of Southern at nearly 11 kilometres deep. The Hades project now aims to

Denmark. investigate how life is sustained at these depths and how its

Prof Ronnie Glud explains, “We argue that deep trenches, activity affects the biogeochemical functioning of the oceans some of the most remote, extreme, and scantily explored habi- and the Earth. tats on Earth, are hotspots of deposition and mineralization of In the Paci? c Ocean, three trenches have been selected based organic material. With the development of innovative, autono- on the different nutrient conditions in the overlying surface mous in situ instrumentation to overcome large sampling arti- waters and different physical-oceanographic conditions, in? u-

September 2015

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