U-166 Project Field Updates
Wednesday, October 8, 2003

With the photomosaics complete, the crew prepared to return to the U-166 site to finish placing microbiology experiments at the conning tower and then begin surveying the debris field. At 3:30 p.m. the ROV Innovator was deployed. The ROV rapidly descended, only taking approximately 30 minutes to reach the seafloor. The high resolution 3-chip video camera fogged up because of the quick temperature change from warmer temperature topside to the cooler temperatures under the swells of the Gulf of Mexico. We waited for the camera to clear up some and then begin setting Lori Johnston's (Droycon Bioconcepts) biological test platforms. The ROV has five cameras onboard, three looking forward and two looking aft. The other two forward cameras were used while waiting for the 3-chip camera to clear. The moisture in the camera began to condensate forming water droplets. The ROV supervisor, Tim Jaramillo of Sonsub, and marine archaeologists Dan Warren and Rob Church (C&C Technologies) decided to bring the ROV back to the surface to clean and dry the in side lenses of the 3-chip camera. The ROV was back on deck at 5:50 p.m.

Sonsub's Innovator remotely-operated vehicle allows people to work and explore in waters too deep for most submersibles.

The moisture was cleaned out of the 3-chip camera and the camera remounted to the ROV. At 8:26 p.m., the ROV was deployed to begin the survey of the debris field. With an excellent view from the high resolution camera, we moved to the line nearest the stern section and began to survey the north-south lines working our way slowly toward the bow section. At first we encountered only sparsely scattered objects and were able to complete ten survey lines in three hours. Rob Church and John McDonough (NOAA Office of Exploration),and Dennis Aig (Montana State University/PAST) were on the day shift along with Tim Jaramillo, Lukas Cribley, and Greg Wardwell controlling the ROV.

One of several air cylinders spotted in the U-166 debris field. Until the first, pioneering dives in bathyspheres in the 1930s, no one believed that animal life could survive the very deep ocean.

During the midnight to noon sift, David Ball of the U.S. Minerals Management Service, Lori Johnston of Droycon Bioconcepts and Jeremy Weirich of NOAA's Office of Exploration continued the survey with the Sonsub crew Ray Maza, Maurice Rivard, and Keith Hyatt controlling the ROV. As they got closer to the heart of the debris field, the artifacts became more concentrated and it took approximately eight hours to complete the next ten lines. The objects observed on the seafloor include copper tubing pipes, twisted floor grating, compressed air cylinders, and many more objects the archaeologist will have to spend hours studying to identify. Over two hundred artifacts have been recorded so far and much more of the site is still left to investigate.

An unidentified artifact spotted in the debris field. Months of work by archaeologists lie ahead to identify all the artifacts recorded by video- and still cameras.

Lori Johnston of Droycon Bioconcepts reports:

My scientific analysis of the bacteria found on U166 began day one and continues to progress throughout the expedition. The identification of bacteria are found by examining the rust-colored icicles, called rusticles. The rusticles are concrete-like structures that are created as the bacteria "mine" or remove the elements and organics out of the steel structures and surrounding environment. The groups of experiments used at this site including the steel test platform, two etch tests and the BART test platform were set on each of the bow and stern sections. The steel test platform contains a number of different types of metals and woods to examine the rate of biocorrosion at the site.

The etch tests are a combination of science and art. Developed, blank slide film put between textiles is placed at the site. The bacteria can then move onto the etch and begin to breakdown the color proteins found on the film. Once the film is retrieved and placed under a microscope, a whole universe of varying shapes and colors is revealed.  These variations are created by the bacteria, different colors and pattern by different types of bacteria. The BART test platform is used to detect the types of communities or consortia found at the site.

Each test will react as the bacteria begin to form within the sample vials, forming clouding, and color changes to occur. The visual analysis of the rusticles, in situ, was completed on day one and two, while sampling of the rusticles will begin on October 10,  2003. There appears to be a wide variety of rusticle structures, including white rusticles found on specific parts of both the bow and the stern. The white rusticles have only been found on the DKM Bismarck in the North Atlantic. Unfortunately, samples were never retrieved, so this will be the first ever white rusticle samples brought up for analysis.