Project SeaCAMEL
For three days, from November 12 to 14, aquanauts living in Aquarius will create an underwater classroom while conducting scientific experiments on the coral reef surrounding the habitat. The mission will be co-lead by CAPT Philip G. Renaud, USN (ret), Executive Director of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation and Dr. Mark Patterson, Associate Professor of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Joining Mark and Phil in Aquarius will be professional underwater videographer DJ Roller, Dr. Annelise Hagan, Chief Project Scientist with the Living Oceans Foundation, and from the Aquarius staff, Jim Buckley, Operations Manager and Craig Cooper, Operations Director.
Project SeaCAMEL takes its name from the desert camel’s similarity to the Aquarius habitat, as both possess internal life-support systems. Phil Renaud adds, “…the camel represents our Foundation’s guiding principle of international scientific cooperation and Science Without Borders®.”
Dr. Patterson is a veteran of six previous Aquarius missions and will lead the team in conducting experiments and broadcasting lectures to numerous Universities, science centers, schools, and over the worldwide web. Project SeaCAMEL will also employ, Fetch 1, a sophisticated undersea robot or Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) designed by Patterson. Students far away from Florida and the Aquarius will have a unique opportunity to see how this offshore lab works, how science is conducted, learn about the coral reef surrounding the habitat, and even collect data with an AUV.
Classroom broadcasts will cover a variety of interesting topics over the course of the mission and should be at a level that is accessible to most people (http://seacamel.livingoceansfoundation.org). They will include experiments and live video feeds from inside the undersea habitat as well as outside on the reef — even at night. Broadcasts can be viewed live on the Internet at http://seacamel.livingoceansfoundation.org, or at http://www.uncw.edu/aquarius, and for those with satellite receivers, via the AMC-3 geosynchronous satellite, free.
- Monday 12 Nov, 2-3 PM: Aquarius Reef Base: Living and Working Underwater
- Monday 12 Nov, 7-8 PM: The Reef at Night
- Tuesday 13 Nov, 11-12 noon: Reefs under Siege
- Tuesday 13 Nov, 2-3 PM: Sponges: the Reef's Filters
- Wednesday 14 Nov, 11-12 noon: The Boundary Layers of the Reef
- Wednesday 14 Nov, 2-3 PM: Aquarius as an Artificial Reef: Survey with an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle