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The 91̽»¨this fall will complete installation of a huge high-tech ocean observatory. Dozens of instruments will connect to power and Internet cables on the seafloor, but the observatory also includes a new generation of ocean explorers: robots that will zoom up and down through almost two miles of ocean to monitor the water conditions and marine life above.

The first U.S. cabled ocean observatory reached a milestone on July 14 with the installation of a node 9,500 feet deep off the coast of Oregon. Like a giant electrical outlet on the seafloor that also provides Internet connectivity, the node was spliced into a network of cable segments totalling some 560 miles that were laid in the summer of 2011. Six more of these primary nodes — each about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle — are being installed…

Like a deep-sea bloodhound, Sentry — the newest in an elite group of unmanned submersibles able to operate on their own in demanding and rugged environments — has helped scientists pinpoint optimal locations for two observation sites of a pioneering seafloor laboratory being planned off Washington and Oregon.

Peter Barletto, who has more than three decades of experience with submarine cable systems and networks, started work at the 91̽»¨ Monday, joining the project team tasked with developing detailed engineering specifications for a cabled underwater research facility to be built off the coast of Washington and Oregon.

While the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was running a six-part series on problems plaguing Puget Sound, 91̽»¨undergraduates, graduate students and faculty were at work on board the UW’s 274-foot research vessel gathering information needed to help puzzle out some of the sound’s most pressing problems.

With clever engineering and being in the right spot, under the right satellite, 91̽»¨oceanographers working with Computing & Communications and the ResearchChannel became the first team in the world to broadcast high-definition video from the seafloor to selected sites around the world Sept.

Black smoker hydrothermal vent systems may have the fire power, but the staying power of seafloor hydrothermal vent systems like the bizarre Lost City vent field — discovered just two and a half years ago — is one reason they may have been incubators of some of Earth’s earliest life, say 91̽»¨scientists and their co-authors in a recent issue of Science.