SUNDAY 17 DECEMBER, 2017 –
UWI TODAY 100
TH
ISSUE
7
RESEARCH
snorkelling and scuba diving became passions I totally
enjoyed. Then when I was doing my undergrad degree at
UWI, I was fortunate to get a summer job at the Institute of
Marine Affairs (IMA). That’s really what shaped my career
direction.
“My very first job after graduating was as a marine
research scientist at the IMA for over 15 years. After that, I
joined UWI. So I’ve been immersed in research for over 35
years now,” she shares. She is currently a Senior Lecturer in
Marine Biology in the Department of Life Sciences at UWI,
as well as being the Deputy Dean for Undergraduate Student
Affairs in the Faculty of Science and Technology.
Dr. Gobin began her academic career specialising
in Benthic Ecology – the study of organisms that live in
the shallow, soft bottom sediments of the coastal sea bed.
Benthic animals include worms, crabs, clams, lobsters,
sponges and very tiny creatures that live in themud – perfect
creatures for studying impacts of industrial effluents.
Dr. Gobin’s forays into deeper waters began just five
years ago, in 2013.
Life In ‘The Van’: High Tech
Tools For Live Discoveries
Dr. Gobin’s first trip aboard the Nautilus was in 2013
to Grenada and the Kick ’Em Jenny submarine volcano.
The following year, Dr. Gobin again landed a spot on the
Nautilus, this time as one of the lead scientists in a return
voyage to Kick ’Em Jenny as well as to explore methane vent
sites in El Pilar off Trinidad’s east coast.
The Nautilus uses remotely operated vessels (ROVs) to
explore, because at great depths of over a mile deep, your
lungs would totally collapse with themassive water pressure,
killing you instantly.
Technology has revolutionized deep-sea explorations,
especially the use of deep-diving drones, first used in
the 1980s with technology funded by the US Navy. Now,
instead of lonely, potentially lethal human dives, scientists
and technicians increasingly use remotely controlled,
unmanned diving drones and networked, high-speed
satellite communications for instant, friendlier group talks
and data sharing.
The E/V Nautilus comes well equipped with a
multibeam mapping system, sonar mapping tools Diana
and Echo, and two remotely operated exploration vehicles
(ROVs), the Hercules and the Argus.The ROVHercules can
dive to 4,000 metres, and has a hi-def camera system, lights,
sophisticated instruments, manipulators, and a range of
sampling tools. The Argus can dive as deep as 6,000 metres.
The Nautilus also has a SeaTel satellite communications
system for live streaming video outreach and scientific
communication from ship to shore. The Inner Space Centre
at the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of
Oceanographymanages all the video and data streams, while
the public can see live footage of exploration on the website
when expeditions are under way.
“It’s all very comfortable,” commented Dr. Gobin. “We
all wear khaki trousers, navy Nautilus t-shirts and soft-soled
shoes aboard the Nautilus, which can hold over 40 people
– 31 scientists and 17 ship’s crew (pilots, cooks, navigators,
engineers and others). I can’t remember the last time I had to
sleep in a bunk bed in a small roomwith three other people,
but it was easy to adapt to the dorm conditions. The ship
has an amazing kitchen which serves tasty meals, coffee and
snacks round the clock. In 2014, I was one of three scientists
on each shift. All the scientists worked four-hour shifts over
a 24-hour period, and were free to spend the rest of their
time doing their own work or activities.”
The nerve centre of the ship, for the scientists, she said,
is a place affectionately called “The Van” – a huge space at
the top of the ship with multiple screens lining the walls,
collecting or transmitting various feeds.
“So there is always a teamof about 12 people inThe Van:
two ROV operators, three scientists, two videographers,
two communications specialists fielding emails and live
online questions, two data loggers and a cartographer who
communicates with the ship’s captain,” said Gobin. “It’s all
very collaborative and interactive.”
“What was really great was there was no distinction
between men and women as to what roles they play on
the ship. I noticed, for instance, that the super-precise job
of deploying and retrieving the ROVs was being done by
women as well as men. And the ratio of men to women is
fairly even.”
There’s an international feel, too, as graduate students
from the USA, UK, Mexico, Spain and Italy added to the
mix for her 2014 Nautilus trip. On every Nautilus voyage,
scientists local to the exploration area are invited to take
part.
Life at great depths – 4,000 to 5,000 feet down – has
evolved remarkable ways to survive in the total absence of
sunlight and plant life. And that fascinates Dr. Gobin.
She says: “Deep sea organisms are extremely interesting
because they live in super dark, pitch-black places where
there is often absolutely no light. They can withstand
extremely high water pressures. And there is not a lot of
food.Those are extreme conditions for any animal to live in.
“Such deep sea organisms have evolved different ways
to exist. Some have huge eyes that can filter even the tiniest
speck of light that manages to reach them; and many are
blind, because they don’t need to see – their other senses,
like detectingmotion and sound, are muchmore developed.
Some animals have bioluminescence. It’s a whole different
world. And you often find gigantism – the mussels, for
What are cold seeps?
The bottom of the ocean is a very, very dark
place – although it’s possible for very slight
sunlight to reach 1,000 metres deep under ideal
conditions, that is rare, and from around 200
metres (or 656 feet) down, there is usually no
light. Before the age of deep-sea exploration,
human scientists believed there could be no life
at all in deep sea beds in the absence of energy
from the sun.
But life, as we now know, always seems to
find a way, even in the harshest of environments.
And on deep-sea beds, which are often like vast
underwater deserts, life can thrive in rare pockets,
feeding on the most curious of things, including
streams of bubbling methane hissed out by the
earth itself. Instead of photosynthesis, life here
depends on chemosynthesis.
The ocean bed surrounding Trinidad has
several methane gas vents or cold seeps, a feature
of its ancient geological formation which has
also gifted it with oil and gas deposits. Methane
vents are deep-sea areas loaded with energy-
rich chemicals. They are sites where fluids rich
in hydrogen sulfide and methane leak from the
seafloor.
The methane in cold seeps provides the
energy to sustain unique communities of life
which have evolved startling adaptations and
symbiotic relationships to eat and to survive.
Three of the main inhabitants of the deep-sea seeps southeast
of Tobago, Bathymodiolus mussels, Alvinocaris shrimp and the
eelpout fish, Pachycara caribbaeum.
PHOTO: OCEAN EXPLORATION TRUST
A group of tubeworms, mussels, snails, anemones, and shrimp surrounded by the shells of dead mussels at a seep off Trinidad and Tobago
(Nautilus 2014 trip)
.
PHOTO: OCEAN EXPLORATION TRUST
