The Aquarius Reef Base is an underwater habitat located 5.4 miles (9 kilometers) off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. It is deployed on the ocean floor 62 feet (19 meters) below the surface and next to a deep coral reef named Conch Reef.
Aquarius is the only undersea laboratory in the world dedicated to science and education. It was owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and operated by the University of North Carolina–Wilmington[1] until 2013 when Florida International University assumed operational control.
Florida International University (FIU) took ownership of Aquarius. As part of the FIU Marine Education and Research Initiative, the Medina Aquarius Program is dedicated to the study and preservation of marine ecosystems worldwide and is enhancing the scope and impact of FIU on research, educational outreach, technology development, and professional training. At the heart of the program is the Aquarius Reef Base.
Through saturation diving techniques, Aquarius allows scientists to live and work underwater 24 hours per day for mission that typically last 10 days. Living underwater allows scientists to conduct research and observe thing that would be difficult to observe if diving from the surface.
Saturation Diving
An aquanaut working to maintain the outside of Aquarius by cleaning off marine growth. He is using a hookah rig that includes a typical second stage regulator attached to an air hose that leads to Aquarius and an air storage tank. A secondary “bailout” bottle is on his back for safety if problems develop with the hookah rig.
Aquarius scientists escape the limitations of conventional surface-based scuba diving through saturation diving. Instead of coming to the surface after diving, scientists who use Aquarius return directly to the undersea laboratory. As long as aquanauts don’t go back to the surface they can use special dive tables to greatly increase their bottom time – to nearly ten times over what they typically have using conventional surface-based diving techniques.
At the end of a mission, aquanauts undergo 15 hours and 45 minutes of decompression, where the pressure inside Aquarius is slowly reduced from ambient (the pressure at the working depth of Aquarius is 2.5 times surface pressure) back to surface pressure. At the end of decompression, Aquanauts exit Aquarius and scuba dive back to the surface.
The Aquarius “habitat” module is an 85-ton double-lock pressure vessel that measures approximately 43 feet long and nine feet in diameter. Entry to Aquarius is through the “Wet Porch.” The Entry Lock, sized at 500 cubic feet, contains bench space for computers and experiments, power equipment, life support controls, small viewports, and bathroom facilities. The largest living space in Aquarius is the 1,400-cubic-foot Main Lock, which includes berths for a six-person crew, computer work stations, two large viewports, and kitchen facilities. The main lock also contains life support controls, so both the entry and main locks can be independently pressurized.
The Aquarius baseplate is a 116-ton structure that provides a stable and level support base for the habitat. Each of the four legs contains 25 tons of lead ballast. The legs have seven feet of adjustment for leveling in variable seafloor terrain through the use of hydraulically-driven screw jacks. The habitat and baseplate were designed to survive severe storm conditions and have successfully weathered hurricanes in both the Caribbean and Florida.
Aquarius scientists work to understand our changing ocean and the condition of coral reefs. Unfortunately, coral reefs are threatened worldwide by increasing amounts of pollution, overharvesting of fisheries, disease, and global climate change. Science achievements from Aquarius include discoveries related to the damaging effects of ultraviolet light on coral reefs, geological studies that use fossil reefs to better understand the significance of present-day changes in coral reefs, research on how corals feed, water quality studies that evaluate sources of pollution, and long-term studies of reefs to help distinguish between changes caused by natural system variability and humans (due to pollution and overharvesting
for more details visit: http://www.fiu.edu/