NEPTUNE Canada

A small fish eyes ROPOS from its feeding grounds atop a methane hydrate outcrop in Barkley Canyon.

When one tectonic plate pushes under another, sediments are scraped from it to create wedge-like formations along the continental margins. This is happening in western North America's Cascadia Subduction zone, where unique physical and biological processes can be observed. As fluids seep up to the seafloor from deep within the crust, methane and other hydrocarbons in these fluids transmute into ice-like structures called gas hydrates.

At some localities, such as along the edges of Barkley Canyon, gas hydrates outcrop at the seafloor as icy mounds populated by extensive bacterial mats and dense communities of large clams. Elsewhere, the shallowly buried gas hydrates release concentrated bursts of methane, bubbling upward through the water column. NEPTUNE Canada will deploy temperature probes, chemical sensors, and geophysical sensor arrays to image the buried deposits. An Internet-operated crawler will help researchers explore and measure chemical properties around the hydrate outcrops.

Endeavour Ridge tubeworm community.

At Endeavour Ridge, NEPTUNE Canada will open a new viewport into a captivating world of submarine pipes and castles. Here, volcanically heated fluids escape from the seafloor, surging upward into cold deep-ocean waters. As they emerge, the metals and minerals they carry precipitate, forming chimneys up to several tens of metres tall. Venting episodes can be traced to periods of volcanism and faulting. The chemically charged fluids support unique ecosystems, including unusual chemosynthetic bacteria, giant tubeworms, and eyeless shrimp that use photosensitive "patches" on their backs to "see" super-heated water coming from the vents.

NEPTUNE Canada will help researchers further their long-term studies of this area’s chemistry, geology, geophysics and biology by monitoring the evolution of several vent fields. Ejection of large quantities of hot water from the ridge affects overlying oceanic circulation and the distribution of important chemical constituents in their effluent; instruments measuring currents and water properties in the water column will help improve our understanding of these phenomena.