Underwater lab

Abstract

The University of Southern California's Catalina Marine Science Center (CMSC) has announced plans to build an underwater marine research laboratory near Santa Catalina Island off the California coast. The project, which will take 2 years to build, will be sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The laboratory will be similar in concept to the U.S. Navy Sea Lab III, which was canceled some time ago.The project's purpose is to give divers access to a laboratory without having to surface. The project leader, Andrew Pilmanis, of the University of Southern California, stated recently (Industrial Research and Development, July 1983): “By the nature of the work, scientists require a lot of bottom time, and to do it by scuba isn't practical…. The only way to do that is with saturation diving. Once the diver is saturated with inert gas, whether the individual stays a few days or for months, only one decompression is required.” Divers will typically stay in the laboratory for 7–10 days. The laboratory will initially be placed at a depth of 20 m, later to be refloated and located at depths to 37 m.