The PLRP 2010 field season has come to a close and I am both saddened by the fact that operations are finished for another year but excited by the prospect of adding the data we’ve collected this year to our growing body of knowledge about this unique lake. I am in awe of the work that has been done by this amazing team and of how much we’ve grown, while maintaining the sense of adventure and camaraderie that to me, helps to define the PLRP.

We’ve taken great strides towards answering many of our research questions and in the process, with every answer we have come up with many more questions that will keep the PLRP team occupied for quite some time. Fortunately, our family continues to grow and every year we welcome new individuals who bring a unique perspective and desire to tease out the mysteries Pavilion has to offer. We have also been blessed this year by the addition of two little members to the PLRP family, Darlene Lim’s daughter Amelia and Greg Slater’s son Joseph. We look forward to the day when they are exploring the lake alongside us.

DeepWorker Pilots and Nuytco Team: 2010

The PLRP provides a wealth of research opportunities, and not just those focused on understanding the processes leading to the formation of the structures at Pavilion Lake but also to understanding fundamental biological, chemical and physical processes. The research contributions from our participating scientists and graduate students have resulted in a number of recent publications and are essential to increasing our understanding of Earth and astrobiological systems. We’re very proud of the role that the PLRP has played in developing operational technologies and protocols that not only help us meet our science objectives but provide important input into future space science missions.

With the addition of our two newest scientist pilots, astronauts Chris Hadfield and Stan Love, we had 34 DeepWorker missions over 10 days of operations. This year we were aided greatly in our pre-season flight planning by the wonderful team from NASA Ames led by Matt Deans and David Lees who developed an amazing flight planning tool that enabled us to search images and flight paths from previous years while building flight plans in Google Earth. Flights this year were planned to collect images of the remaining unexplored regions of the lake, to record detailed images of areas of interest identified from 2008 and 2009 data and to use the submersibles in combination with other analytical tools such as a conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) instrument and our autonomous underwater vehicle(s) (AUV). Our ability to review post-flight video data in the field, an effort pioneered in 2009, added greatly to our productivity as this information was used immediately by the science backroom team to modify existing flight plans to best optimize our data collection. As part of the daily flight debriefs, we have also continued to apply metrics associated with scientific productivity to understand factors that influence scientific exploration. New this year to the DeepWorker flight repertoire were long ~ 5 hour flights and two night flights to investigate the grazing activity that we suspect may occur in the lake. To add to the innovations this year, Nick Wilkinson designed a fantastic, interactive program for use in classifying the microbialite images. This new tool will allow us to efficiently organize and process our field data over the coming months. Stay tuned for updates.

The Amazing Pavilion Lake Research Project Team: 2010!

In case our DeepWorker operations didn’t keep us busy enough, we had a number of other important activities included in the field schedule this year. The UBC and University of Delaware AUV teams produced fantastic images of the lake bottom that were often used to compliment the DeepWorker flights and give us a better picture of where interesting structures and features are in the lake. Numerous SCUBA dives were performed by our intrepid team of divers to collect water and microbialite samples that were shared between various research groups in an effort to combine and compliment analytical findings. These samples will be characterized from a virology, microbial lipid, isotopic and genetic point of view to provide more information about the role of biology in the formation of the microbialites and what biosignatures may be left behind. Water samples were collected from nearby lakes including Crown, Turquoise, Pear and Kelly Lake to continue to help us put Pavilion Lake in context. Kelly Lake, which also hosts microbialites and has been an area of interest to the PLRP team for many years, was also the focus of significant AUV activities this year. Microbial mats were once again collected from the Cariboo Plateau lakes and giant pancakes were eaten by all (well, almost all). As a new participatory activity this year, our visiting teacherswere given the task of selecting a SCUBA dive based on their understanding of the research questions of interest (on their first day no less!). I’m happy to report that they eagerly interviewed members of the team before presenting their selected dive and rationale to the group for inclusion in the next day’s diving schedule. Community Day was another great success this year with the team happy to show off our work and answer questions from the many visitors we had to the site. Busy indeed!

We plan on continuing our updates throughout the year as we analyze samples and work through the amazing amount of data that were collected. Thanks to all who have read about our activities and through this process, have joined in our adventure. See you next year!

~ Allyson

DORA and UBC-Gavia in the water ready to deploy in Pavilion Lake.

Its now been just over a week since the end of our adventures at Pavilion Lake and, as I start trying to look at all the data we’ve collected, I can’t help but be impressed with our successes. In addition to the image mosaicing that I was working on, and showed pictures of in an earlier post, my specific focus of being up at the lake was running coordinated missions between the two autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), that we had on-site from the University of British Columbia and the University of Delaware, and the Deepworker vehicles. Our mission planning goals were twofold; joint objectives and joint missions.

Joint objective style missions measure parameters that are relatively static in time (i.e. photos of microbialites). This means that coordinating different platforms isn’t necessary but coordinating their datasets are. This requires that the timestamps of each data stream be precisely set and that the dataset is georeferenced to a high degree of accuracy. This work was started last year but continued this year by using the collected images from Deepworker and comparing it with AUV collected data (e.g. high-precision bathymetry).

Comparing multibeam bathymetry collected with DORA with detailed imagery from UBC-Gavia.

Joint missions involved a significantly greater degree of coordination as it involved running the vehicles at the same time as the Deepworkers. Our experiment this year was to look at the area of increased salinity at the bottom of the lake. To this end had the Deepworkers crossing the bottom of the basin at about 1 m from the bottom (> 55 m depth), while running UBC-Gavia at 40 m depth. The greatest debate was trying to decide what the minimum safe distance was to be between the two platforms! In the end we ran AUV missions down to 48 m without any problems. Although we’re just starting to process all of this data now, from both styles of missions, we’re excited about what new perspectives these combined datasets might hold.

-Alex

Mike Gernhardt with the DeepWorker barge in the background

This is my third year as a submarine pilot/scientist on the Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP) and it is really exciting and informative to be part of this team and to watch the progression and trends in the science and operational methods that are being applied to this expedition.  I originally became involved in the PLRP because of the use of the dual DeepWorker submersible system as an operational analog to the dual Lunar Electric Rover system that my team at NASA is developing.  The really special thing about PLRP is that it’s not a simulation, its real world-class science and the methods that we use to plan the flights collect and analyze the data, and the lessons we learn are directly relevant to future space exploration. It’s also pretty cool that we are seeing things that human eyes have never seen before and in that sense it’s analogous to finding life on Mars or some other planet.

Mike Gernhardt and Bill Todd (front) work as CapCom on the surface vehicle, while Steve Wittig (back) captains the nav boat

The main contributions of our NASA Exploration Analogs and Mission Development team (EAMD) are to perform the operational research necessary to characterize the productivity and effectiveness of the operation and then systematically analyze the data and use the results to refine the operational methods over a multi-year period with the aim of achieving the highest level of scientific return from the human and machine assets deployed during the expedition.  To this end we have developed a variety of metrics that characterize the data, and observation quality along with the operational performance and timeline data.  These metrics are then correlated with the scientific merit metrics that we have developed with the PLRP team to understand the right balance between operational discipline and scientific flexibility. Is the right answer going to be totally rigid flight plans and flight rules to control every minute or the exploration dives, or complete scientific flexibility to explore whatever seems most interesting at the time? Probably neither,  the optimal mix is most likely  somewhere in between and this multi-year research program provides a unique opportunity to find that optimal mix here on earth so that we don’t have to learn those lesson out in space were the expense and consequences are much higher.

-Mike

Mike Gernhardt, ready for deployment in DeepWorker.

In the name of science we have invaded cottage country. The quiet cabins along Pavilion Lake have every bed filled, and there’s a tractor-trailer in the parking lot with NASA painted on it. Instead of fishing boats we have floating science platforms, torpedo-shaped robots, and 1-person submarines.

While digging into the world’s geological history we’re making an unusual racket in a peaceful place, and this is what I hear:

• My roommate’s alarm clock is set to Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees. It seems a brutal sentiment at 06:45.
• My bunkbed mattress creaks so loudly that I only roll over when I really have to.
• Breakfast is a hubbub of voices, 50 scientists and researchers from all over, discussing Cheerio flavours and side-scanning sonar.
• Many small fans cooling too many laptops creates a steady low hum in every room.
• The technician’s voice is calm and steady as he reads me the submarine pre-launch checklist.
• The thrusters on my submarine whir and whine, like a sputtering dentist’s drill.
• Radio voices are too loud and urgent to be natural at the bottom of the lake. My own voice sounds alien down there.

The loons calling on the lake are haunting and perfect, and will reclaim the mountain silence as soon as we are gone.

Chris Hadfield

Colonel, Astronaut, submarine pilot

Magical! Driving a sub through the “herms” of Pavilion Lake is absolutely magical! Imagine this: a snow of particulates streaks around the dome. A yellow light permeates the water column as it filters through the planktonic cloud and bounces through the Chara. Microbialites rise up from the bottom like castles shrouded in a mist of microalgae. The natural world is like poetry to an observational scientist, and a dive in the herms is high art. Of course, to someone who studies the shapes and forms of microbialites (like I do), a dive in the herms is also like candy! Microbialites cover up to 90 percent of the lake bottom, and exhibit a variety of different shapes in a space of only a few meters. For a microbialite scientist – Yum!

View from the pilot's seat.

Today I was lucky enough to pilot such a dive to the herms. The herms are an area near the center of Pavilion Lake. Their name is a bit of a misnomer – in fact, it is more of a nickname that stuck! Herms is short for bioherms, which refers to a build up of biological organisms, usually into a mound that rises above the surrounding sea or lake floor. Our Pavilion herms are mounds, but they are probably just sediment mounds that are covered in lots of microbialites, rather than being mounds build up exclusively by microbialites. Nevertheless, they remain a favorite area of the PLRP scientific team, because of the small area, dense ecology, and interesting geochemical and limnological environment.

My mission was to completely circumnavigate two of the herms that we had not mapped in previous years. Navigating the subs through an area of such dense mounds and interesting features has been challenging in the past. The topography can make communication between the surface and subs problematic, and our maps have not always been as accurate as they are now. However, as our research has continued, our knowledge of the area has improved, our communications infrastructure has grown by leaps and bounds, and I daresay, some of us are even getting better at flying these subs! I am proud to say that the circumnavigation went smoothly and we were able to fill in some missing areas in our maps of the herms!

Exploring the herms at 40 feet.

Improving our maps also means raising more questions; such is the nature of exploration, and this dive was no exception. Although many of the morphological trends that I observed were similar to those I have noticed before (adding strength to some of our hypotheses), new subtleties leapt into view. Why, for example, do many of the microbialites along the bottom of the mounds look roughed-up, slightly broken, whitish, and all together kind of crummy? Does it have to do with fluctuating sediment levels at the bases of the mounds? Perhaps. That leads me to questions of how precisely sediment is transported around the mounds: what is the source of the sediment? How often do large sediment flows come down from the surrounding walls? Are the microbialites buried and exposed regularly or does it happen on a timescale of decades or centuries!? For each answer there are new questions, and for each new question there are a handful of associated questions.

Returning to the surface to see a smiling Susan Winnitoy, guiding me back to the barge.

The abundance of new questions is thrilling, and is what keeps bringing us back here. I often find myself chatting with people who are surprised that we haven’t uncovered all of the details of microbialite formation, development, and growth – after all, we have been studying Pavilion Lake for a number of years. Yet that is the appeal of studying microbialites! Microbialite mounds are subject to nearly countless variables – biological, chemical, and physical processes that change through time. Untangling each of those influences is a process – a process that is being helped along by the phenomenal amount of data that we are collecting with the DeepWorker subs, with the GAVIA AUVs, and with our team of SCUBA divers. So, do we understand everything about microbialite formation yet? Nope. Not by far. But with dives like my magical one through the herms, we are getting ever closer! The microbialites of Pavilion Lake have a story to tell, and through our exploration we are listening to the telling.

- Bekah

Click here to view the embedded video.

Bekah Shepard explores the highway side of the North Basin of Pavilion Lake. Click the wrench icon in the Google Earth plugin window to slow down the animation speed.

Download the KMZ file for your Google Earth software here: 20100629C

I had the pleasure of being on board for the first launch of the 2010 field season. For this post, I’m going to let the photos speak for themselves.  You can view the rest of the photos from the day on Picasa here.

Enjoy, - Ben

As the 2010 PLRP field season draws nearer, we are all busy with plans and preparations. This summer will be a bit different for me as our fearless leader Darlene will be on maternity leave and I will be stepping into the role of acting Principal Investigator (PI). A daunting task, but I know I have the support of an amazing team of people and we’re all working towards having a fun, safe and successful field season.

Allyson in final preparation for a DeepWorker flight

Looking back over the last 5 years that I have been involved in PLRP I am in awe of what we’ve accomplished and how much we’ve grown. Last year we successfully mapped additional regions of the lake using the DeepWorker submersibles and re-visited areas of interest identified in 2008 for more detailed imaging and observations. We were also very successful in classifying a great deal of our DW imaging data while in the field. This was a huge accomplishment and the entire team worked very hard to make this happen, we hope to have a repeat this year. Examination of the 2009 data has helped us to identify more regions that show interesting trends that we will be exploring in this upcoming field season.

Flight planning for 2010 is going ahead full-steam! We are very pleased to continue with our astronaut training program this year and welcome Chris Hadfield and the Stan Love to the PLRP gang. I can’t wait to see their reaction to viewing this remarkable lake and the microbialites for the first time.

As always, there are a number of fundamental science questions that we are working towards answering through the exploration of this beautiful lake, not only with DW but with SCUBA and GAVIA as well. We will continue to examine questions regarding the role of biology and physical parameters in carbonate precipitation including: What are the dominant surface microbial and viral communities? Does grazing by macroorganisms affect microbialite morphology? What is the role of algae? How do depth and slope affect morphology? And many more… I’m looking forward to partaking in some great science and exploration activities this summer.

The field season is nearly upon us so stay tuned for more updates!

~ Allyson

This is a preview of what’s coming for 2010 – Google Earth mapping from the field! This Google Earth animation shows Margarita Marinova flying DeepWorker 6 in the South Basin of Pavilion Lake. If the animation moves too quickly, adjust the animation setting by clicking on the ‘wrench’ icon in the Google Earth Box.

This morning the towers of downtown Vancouver, across Burrard Inlet from our hotel, were blurred with a grey veil of rain. No trouble, I thought. It rained yesterday and we got plenty of training done regardless. Rain is not really a threat to a submarine! But, crucially, the big rotating sign in the shape of a “Q” that marked the Lonsdale Quay marketplace was behaving oddly. Every once in a while its steady turning would stall, or even reverse for a few seconds.

The magnitude of the problem didn’t become apparent until we got out to the marine lab. The Canadian flag at the front of the building snapped madly and strained at its line. The sea was dark grey and spangled with whitecaps. Two-foot seas washed over the float where the support skiff was moored and interfered with each other near shore to make a high, sharp, chaotic chop. Sailboats in ones and twos, aborting cruise plans for the Easter weekend, struggled in the direction of the harbor under bare poles, pitching and plunging. Not a pretty day for nautical endeavors. (We found out later that it was the strongest windstorm in several years, with winds reaching 100 km/h. It dropped trees on power lines, cutting electricity to over 100,000 customers, and forced cancellation of some ferry service).

Our instructors didn’t like the look of things either. “Do you get seasick easily?” one of them asked me. Jeff was frowning at the idea of putting a sub under tow in the present sea state, if it should have a mechanical problem. For about an hour we stood around in our full raingear, watching the weather for signs of improvement. Our patience was not rewarded. If anything, it seemed to be getting worse–visibility dropping, sleet beginning to mix in with the rain. We began discussing how much submarine training we might be able to accomplish without having to court nausea and disaster by putting the vehicles in the water.

What we settled on was to call our sonar and manipulator work of the previous day sufficient and to devote our time today to the one system on the sub that we hadn’t touched yet: the video camera and recorder. It emerged that the video system works pretty much the same on land and in the water. Chris and I took turns sitting in DeepWorker #7, hatch closed to keep the rain out of the cockpit but resting securely on dry land, and working through the video controls. This was quickly done. Then we headed for the warmth and dryness of the lab for coffee and “Timbits” (evidently the Canadian word for donut holes). We had a relaxed discussion of all we’d learned. After that we exchanged a final round of thank-yous and handshakes, called our submarine driver certification complete, and parted company.

Thus ends Dr. Love’s underwater blog for now. It was a wonderful treat to drive the Deep Worker, and a much appreciated privilege to be allowed to do so, especially in the company of such excellent teachers and fellow students. For me this training trip was also a satisfying visit to the Pacific Coast. I was raised in Western Oregon, and any day when I get to see clouds caught in tall trees is a good one! The blog will resume this summer in a higher and less rainy environment, when I meet the DeepWorker submersible again for the Real Deal: the field season at Pavilion Lake.

-Stan