Monday 12 September
The EMSO-Azores team is delighted to announce the successful upgrade of the observatory, achieved after a two-week cruise aboard the R/V Atalante finishing today. The observing capacity of the marine infrastructure – operating on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at 1700 m water depth – has been doubled, and the following observation parameters are now available to the public in near real time:

– From the seabed: number, level and date of seisms detected since deployment, seabed pressure gauge, daily snapshot from an HDTV camera on a mussel assemblage and its functioning parameters, Iron concentration analysis spectrum description, Oxygen concentration, turbidity sensor signal, output of a chain of 100 thermistors, colonizer and vent water sampler system parameters, chlorinity sensor parameters as well as engineering parameters,
– From the sea surface: geodetic GPS data, weather station parameters (wind, pressure, temperature), buoy position and engineering parameters.

These parameters are accessible here (updated 4 times/day). In addition, the mussel assemblage HDTV video footages, the integral seismic data and those from an array of four hydrophones will be retrieved from the seabed stations next summer, as well as a number of temperature sensors distributed on the seabed.
The extension of the observing capacity is funded by the French National Research Agency « LuckyScales » project (grant agreement ANR-14-CE02-0008-01). It was made possible thanks to a substantial engineering effort on the subsea stations, including the design and use of a new sensor front-end named COSTOF2, able to serve more sensors and to handle increased data volumes and rates.”