UWTV A deep-sea octopus makes a cameo appearance.
A new half-hour documentary, " Down to the Volcano ,” that explores the ocean depths off the Washington coast, airs Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. The video tells the story of the Visions '11 cruise and gives viewers a taste for what to expect from an expedition this summer. The documentary, created through a collaboration between the UW School of Oceanography and UWTV, airs on Channel 27, with streaming anytime on UWTV 's website. Created during the last two years, the video plunges viewers into the experience of building a new type of ocean observatory - one that will use fiber-optic cables to bring electrical power, high-speed Internet and modern instruments to the deep sea. The video takes viewers to one of the sites of the observatory now under construction: Axial Seamount, a volcano some 300 miles off the West Coast and a mile beneath the ocean's surface. The documentary includes dramatic footage captured by high-definition video cameras operated by submersible robots. The non-human stars of the documentary include a deep-ocean octopus, bioluminescent jellyfish, and rarely seen microbial "snow blowers” that stream from the underwater volcano. The goal of the National Science Foundation-funded observatory, part of the national Ocean Observatories Initiative, is "to have a permanent presence in the ocean via a new technology,” said principal investigator John Delaney , a UW professor of oceanography.
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