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Analytical Chemistry

XPrize To Award $7 Million For Ocean Floor Exploration

Technology: Teams will compete to develop autonomous mapping, imaging, and sensing technology for the deep sea

by Jyllian Kemsley
December 15, 2015

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Credit: Neal Langerman
New chemical sensing technology might be able to determine when underwater corals enter their annual reproductive cycle.
Photo of coral.
Credit: Neal Langerman
New chemical sensing technology might be able to determine when underwater corals enter their annual reproductive cycle.

A new competition will award up to $7 million to advance autonomous, fast, and high-resolution exploration of the deep ocean, organizers announced on Dec. 14 at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. Shell is providing $6 million for seafloor mapping and imaging, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is contributing a $1 million “bonus” for detecting chemical and biological signals underwater.

The contest is organized by the XPrize Foundation, which develops competitions to push “the boundaries of human potential by focusing on problems currently believed to be unsolvable, or that have no clear path toward a solution,” the foundation says.

The need for a better understanding of the seafloor is immense—95% of Earth’s ocean floor is unknown, XPrize Chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis said at the AGU meeting. “We know more about the surface of Mars than we do our own oceans,” he added. Whatever technology is developed, organizers hope it will foster discoveries such as new medications found in deep-sea organisms or the locations of downed aircraft.

“Scientists, engineers, academics, entrepreneurs, and other innovators with new ideas from all over the world are invited to form a team and register to compete,” in the Shell Ocean Discovery XPrize, the foundation says. It will release final competition guidelines on Feb. 29, 2016, and teams will have until Sept. 30, 2016, to register. Round one of the competition will occur in the summer of 2017 and will involve testing the competitors’ devices in an area of 100 km2 at a depth of 2,000 m. Round two will occur in 2018 and will involve an area of 250 km2 at a depth of 4,000 m.

The competition will require launching of autonomous technology from shore—no people will be allowed to accompany the devices, although they can operate remote controls. That requirement was to avoid putting people at risk in difficult seas, said David Schewitz, Shell’s vice president of geophysics for the Americas.

NOAA’s goal with the sensing part of the competition is to spur development of technology to characterize chemical and biological features of oceans as well as physical features, said NOAA Chief Scientist Richard Spinrad. NOAA would like to get a better understanding of carbon, nutrient, and pollutant chemistry in deep seas. Specific targets could include detecting methane seeps or a signal of coral reproduction, he said.

“As an ocean researcher myself, it was like a present under the Christmas tree to see this announced, said Margaret Leinen, AGU president and director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. “All of us really feel that this has the opportunity to be a real game changer for ocean exploration.”

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