The Amazing SeaSled!

Trying to study Antarctic seafloor organisms that live as deep as 2,300 meters (~1.5 miles) is not exactly what you would call an easy task.

But having SeaSled definitely makes life easier for our team of scientists!

SeaSled is a rugged underwater camera vehicle that is towed behind the ship in a straight line and at a constant slow speed.  It was built specifically for our Antarctic research by our collaborating marine engineers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
  

SeaSled being lowered into the water

SeaSled is equipped with two down-facing cameras and two strobe lights which all go off simultaneously every six seconds.  Us scientists aboard the ship get a live feed of these seafloor images via a large cable that runs from SeaSled up to the ship.

Also equipped with a CTD, SeaSled is able to gather data on the temperature, salinity, and pressure (depth) while below the surface.  It also has an ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) which tells us how high off the bottom SeaSled is at all times.

We try to keep SeaSled about 3 meters from the seafloor at all times, but this is much easier said than done while it's at depths like 2,000 meters and the boat is rocking!

We are excited to see what we discover on the Antarctic seafloor, and are even more excited that you will be following along with us as we post photos to the blog straight from the amazing SeaSled!

SeaSled being hoisted over the side of the boat into ice covered water!

King crab (Paralomis birsteini) photographed by SeaSled on the Antarctic seafloor in 2012.