Oceanographic Workhorses
(Click to enlarge) Credit: Jack Cook, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Moored platforms provide oceanographers the means to deploy sensors at fixed depths between the seafloor and the sea surface and to deploy packages that profile vertically at one location by moving up and down along the mooring line or by winching themselves up and down from their point of attachment to the mooring.
An oceanographic mooring is anchored to the sea floor by a mooring line extending upward from the anchor to one or more buoyant floats, which can be located in the water column or at the sea surface.
The mooring line may consist of plastic-jacketed steel wire rope, synthetic line, electromechanical cable with copper conductors or electro-optical mechanical cable with copper conductors and optical fibers.
These capable and proven oceanographic platforms are used throughout the OOI, within the Regional, Coastal, and Global Scale Nodes.
