Workshop Announcement
NEPTUNE Regional Cabled Ocean Observatory
November 15-16, 2005
Location: The University of Washington Club

A two-day workshop for the University of Washington community will held November 15,16 at The University of Washington Club to explore opportunities within the NEPTUNE regional cabled ocean observatory.

Members of the UW community who plan to attend the meeting should respond via email to <neptune@apl.washington.edu>. Please also respond if you are unable to attend but wish to receive updates on the status of NEPTUNE planning at the UW.

Workshop Goals

1. Update UW community on the status of NEPTUNE
2. Form expert groups to explore and identify the full-range of opportunities offered by NEPTUNE
3. Initiate long-lead-time activities to support cutting-edge science, engineering, and education/outreach programs
4. Encourage and support UW groups to submit NEPTUNE-related proposals.

Background

Transformative New Approaches
A major transformation is taking place in research, engineering, and education activities associated with the ocean and earth sciences. Distributed sensor networks, now under development, will enable entirely new approaches to our study and understanding of the oceans, by providing continuous connectivity. One of the best examples of this new approach is the NEPTUNE regional cabled ocean observatory that is being installed off the Pacific Northwest coast on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. The NEPTUNE system will comprise up to 3000-km of fiber-optic/power cable connecting 30 nodes with heavily instrumented distributed sensor networks, providing unprecedented power and bandwidth to the seafloor.

Installation to Begin in 2007
The northern third of the NEPTUNE network is scheduled for installation by NEPTUNE Canada in 2007-8; the U.S. portion is being organized within the framework of the NSF’s Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION) program and the $268 million Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) within the Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction account. Funding for the OOI is slated to begin in FY 2007.

Role of the UW
Since the late 1990s, the University of Washington has played a key role in the development of the regional cabled observatory concept and is ideally situated both intellectually and geographically to contribute extensively to all aspects of its implementation. The UW has led the international NEPTUNE consortium developing NEPTUNE and, in the future, expects to add additional partner institutions and play a major role in the installation and operation of NEPTUNE.

Planning Activities
NEPTUNE requires many long-lead-time activities, including extensive planning and development of

  • extensive planning for science experiments
  • a wide range of new sensor and sensor network technologies
  • shore-side infrastructure and techniques to manage and exploit real-time multidisciplinary data streams
  • innovative educational and outreach programs, including interdisciplinary efforts among the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts, and
  • law and policy strategies related to implementation and operation of NEPTUNE.

This workshop is supported by the UW Office of Research, College of Engineering,
and College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences.