Abstract

The Geophysical and Oceanographic Station for Abyssal Research (GEOSTAR), an autonomous seafloor observatory that collects measurements benefiting a number of disciplines during missions up to 1 year long, will begin the second phase of its first mission in 2000. The 6–8 month investigation will take place at a depth of 3400 m in the southern Tyrrhenian basin of the central Mediterranean.GEOSTAR was funded by the European Community (EC) for $2.4 million (U.S. dollars) in 1995 as part of the Marine Science and Technology programme (MAST). The innovative deployment and recovery procedure GEOSTAR uses was derived from the “two‐module” concept successfully applied by NASA in the Apollo and space shuttle missions, where one module performs tasks for the other, including deployment, switching on and off, performing checks, and recovery. The observatory communication system, which takes advantage of satellite telemetry, and the simultaneous acquisition of a set of various measurements with a unique time reference make GEOSTAR the first fundamental element of a multiparameter ocean network.

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