NEPTUNE

Key takeaways

NEPTUNE belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect NEPTUNE to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of NEPTUNE from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The NEPTUNE Ocean Observatory project is part of Ocean Networks Canada which is a University of Victoria initiative. NEPTUNE is the world's first regional-scale underwater ocean observatory that plugs directly into the Internet. NEPTUNE is the largest installation on the Ocean Networks Canada network of ocean observatories. Since December 2009, it has allowed people to "surf" the seafloor while ocean scientists run deep-water experiments from labs and universities around the world. Along with its sister project, VENUS, NEPTUNE offers a unique approach to ocean science. Traditionally, ocean scientists have relied on infrequent ship cruises or space-based satellites to carry out their research, while the NEPTUNE project uses a remotely operated crawler.

Overview NEPTUNE is an acronym for North-east Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments. The North-East Pacific is home to the Juan de Fuca Plate, which is the smallest of Earth's 12 tectonic plates. Its small size and close proximity to the coast gives NEPTUNE Canada an opportunity to observe tectonic processes. NEPTUNE Canada is built to provide continuous observations for 25 years. The time-series data gathered will allow scientists to study long-term changes over the life of the project. Instruments comprising the undersea observatory will operate at depths ranging from 17 to 2,660 m. Hundreds of instruments have been connected to the Internet by way of shielded cables carrying both power and fibre-optic communication lines. A database will archive and provide networked access to all archived data. Taking advantage of this platform, scientists collaborating with NEPTUNE are expected to conduct thousands of unique experiments over the life of the project.

Status In 2007, NEPTUNE Canada laid approximately 800 km of power transmission and fibre optic communication cables over the northern part of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off the west coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The University of Victoria hosts both the NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS projects along with the Data Management and Archiving System that is responsible for all data processing, from data acquisition to archiving to providing near real-time web access. The NEPTUNE project was selected as one of the five most significant science projects of the year in 2008 from The Economist. In June 2008, the NEPTUNE project received and successfully tested the world's first "Internet-operated deep sea crawler", created by a team of ocean scientists at Bremen's Jacobs University, will help researchers measure conditions such as temperature, salinity, methane content and sediment characteristics at the seafloor. The crawler "crawls" on dual tractor treads, which allow a full range of forward, backward and turning movement. Including its titanium frame, drive motors, sealed electronics chambers, wiring, lights, HD video camera, and sensors, the unit's out-of-water weight is 275 kg. With syntactic foam flotation blocks attached, this is reduced to an in-water weight of 40 kg. One unique feature is its control interface, which plugs directly into the Web. Interested people will be able to tune in to a live sea floor crawl on the NEPTUNE website. The crawler was named "Wally" (after the fictional Pixar robot WALL-E) and explored regions of the ocean floor containing methane clathrates. Late September 2008 NEPTUNE Canada's first fully instrumented instrument platform was deployed by ROPOS from the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P Tully in Saanich Inlet and connected to the VENUS Saanich Inlet node. This platform was recovered in early 2009 and reconfigured for deployment at Endeavour Ridge during the summer of 2010. A similar observatory will be installed off the west coast of the states of Washington and Oregon. The University of Washington will lead the Regional Scale Nodes component of the NSF's Ocean Observatories Initiative. July–October 2009, the main science nodes were installed along with 11 instrument platforms and over 60 scientific instruments. 8 December 2009, NEPTUNE Canada's official operational launch was celebrated with a Go-live Event. March 2010, Robert Gagosian, president and chief executive officer of the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in Washington, D.C., and Martin Taylor, president and chief executive officer of Ocean Networks Canada (umbrella organization for both NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS), signed a memorandum of understanding pledging to work closely together as they manage and operate ocean observing systems. May 2010, instrument platforms were refurbished and new instruments installed during an installation and maintenance cruise aboard the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P Tully. Fall 2010, new cables were laid and instruments installed as NEPTUNE Canada extended its network to the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents. These installations were accomplished with the help of the crews of the RV Thomas G. Thompson, the Canadian Coast Guard Ship John P Tully and CSSF/ROPOS. These components are connected on a backbone of thick and insulated cable called a spur cable that has two separated lines for transmitting the data in opposite directions. The instruments transmit the data either clockwise or counter clockwise within a 2 by 2 Gbit/s data flow. Since the primary purpose of the system is data collection and analysis, the available instruments generate data of various size and nature. The collected data is then transmitted on the spur cable passing through all the routers that are on one of the best alternative paths of the data flow.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with NEPTUNE

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what NEPTUNE claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to NEPTUNE before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about NEPTUNE ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of NEPTUNE

In research: NEPTUNE appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses NEPTUNE in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: NEPTUNE is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Pacific Ocean, Research projects, Underwater work, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for NEPTUNE outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study NEPTUNE in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what NEPTUNE means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain NEPTUNE out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is NEPTUNE in simple terms?

The NEPTUNE Ocean Observatory project is part of Ocean Networks Canada which is a University of Victoria initiative. NEPTUNE is the world's first regional-scale underwater ocean observatory that plugs directly into the Internet.

Why does NEPTUNE matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study NEPTUNE?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on NEPTUNE.