Antarctic video gallery
Caring for krill
Video transcript
Krill biologist Rob King: So aquarium systems on Antarctic vessels have traditionally been cold rooms with small aquarium systems recirculating within them, and when you get back to your home port, typically the animals taken off in nets into buckets of cold water, packed in ice and trucked to their new home aquarium on land.
That has all sorts of problems with it because there's multiple handling of the animals and also it's quite a big work health and safety issue to move tonnes of water in buckets through doorways and ships. What we did was we turned that concept around and went to a much more logistically streamlined system, where we built the aquariums for Nuyina in containerised laboratory.
AAD Instrument Workshop Manager Steve Whiteside: We've basically designed this in a containerised system so we can increase the capacity, the safety and the ability to transport our krill in pristine health.
It allows us to safely remove the aquarium container from the ship, crane it directly onto a truck and then bring it to our Kingston aquarium where we can safely and efficiently unload the krill.
Rob King: So this removes all of the manual handling for humans, it removes the double handling for specimens, and provides much more continuity in the water chemistry control, oxygen control, and so forth, for the specimens in the tanks as well.
Steve Whiteside: We modeled the entire internals of the container in 3D CAD and that allowed us to work out if it could actually fit in the very small space. And then the construction and fit out was done here in our AAD workshops.
We have two lab containers that are configurable at different temperatures and one container for returning our specimens back to our research facility here in Hobart, and the other is for conducting experiments on the ship.
Rob King: So for the past 20 years we've been running an Antarctic marine research aquarium in Kingston, Tasmania, and that's allowed us to answer questions about Antarctic krill
At very short notice we've been able to do research on them because we have a captive population that represents wild krill.
So putting an aquarium on board the Nuyina that is much more efficient and much more easy to operate with a small number of people, and much more easy to bring the samples back to shore, is going to increase our capability to run that sort of research on krill.
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2021 Eureka prize winner
Video transcript
Dana Bergstrom
AAD Terrestrial Ecologist
With my colleagues I champion Antarctic conservation science.
By working with managers in logistics, environmental protection and environmental policy, we successfully translate cutting edge signs to effective action on the ground.
We deliver the best biosecurity practices, map the human footprint across Antarctica and track ecological shifts in changing climate.
Assembling a team of experts we applied these polar lessons to understanding ecosystem collapse from Australia's tropics to Antarctica.
The three A's, Awareness, Anticipation and Action is an innovative option for modern conservation.
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Nuyina Nerve Centre
Video transcript
RSV Nuyina is the most advanced polar research vessel in the world
Rick van den Enden (Technology & Innovation, AAD): When we've designed it and considered all the things we need to include in it, we've gone out to a broad engagement from a number of stakeholders and we've really asked them, "What do you see as those requirements that you need to support the science you want to see”.
Camille Couzi (AAD Science Systems Engineer): With all the array of science systems that are going to be on board the vessel, we’re going to be able to support meteorological research projects, as well as chemistry, biology, oceanography, we can do all sorts of mapping and measuring.
The ship bristles with environmental sensors
Angus Cummings (AAD Science Systems Engineer): We’re up on the monkey island of the RSV Nuyina at the moment, where we’re having a look at all the meteorological instrumentation we have on board. We have similar equipment here to what you’d expect to find at a Bureau of Meteorology weather station, even at an airport.
We have a present weather sensor here that can make an estimation of the visibility in air at the moment, and can also detect whether it’s raining, or sleet or misty or foggy and report that. Hand in hand with the present weather sensor, we have a ceilometer over there, which measures cloud height and thickness at various levels, using a laser bouncing off the clouds and coming back.
We have solar radiation sensors on both wings, four different types of detectors. We have a weather radar on the crows nest, we have three different wind speed and direction sensors, two forward one aft, and each of those has a humidity and temperature sensor. We have one pressure sensor in the crows nest, and we have an all-sky imager that takes 180 degree photos of the sky once a minute for cloud detection and reporting.
We’re also equipped to have weather observers on board, and they can release weather balloons that will profile the atmosphere from the sea level right through to about 30000 metres, so there’s not much that can happen weather-wise around the ship that we can’t detect.
As well as the atmosphere above, Nuyina can ‘see’ the ocean below using sound
Hull-mounted echosounders and sonars are being tested
Technicians: Welcome to my lair. Let’s go turn it on. That’s power on. Good to go. Ping on.
Camille Couzi: This is really exciting for all of us in my team, all the science systems engineers and the acousticians in my team, because we have all the instruments, all the toys we can play with.
Camille Couzi: There is a fishfinder at the front of the Nuyina that looks forward and is able to detect the presence of fish or krill in front of the vessel. And that’s very useful to go to that area and see those fish or krill under the vessel using the downward facing echosounders we have on board the vessel, both in the hull and on the drop keel. And then we can deploy the trawl net in order to fish what’s in the water and then compare what we’ve seen on our sounders with what we’ve got on the deck.
On the ship, an app provides data in real time to laptops or phones
Camille: It was developed for the Aurora Australis and it kinda started growing organically based on what scientists needed. We’ve added all the devices that the Nuyina has. If for example we were doing a CTD deployment via the moon pool or the CTD door, all of that information would be displayed on the web app, as well as what’s the depth of the CTD, in real time, what’s the data that the CTD’s measuring.
Rick van den Enden: That's going to be really valuable on this vessel because it's so big and we're going to have people in all sorts of spaces doing all sorts of activities and we want to be able to keep them informed.
A state-of-the-art science ship for a new generation
Camille: I think this is an amazing amazing vessel. I’ve worked in the marine engineering industry for the last ten years, but this is by far the biggest vessel I’ve been on. I’m looking forward to keep working in this team and to participate in all the amazing research we’re going to do. Can’t wait to support all the research projects that are going to happen on this vessel.
END
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Drilling into action
Video transcript
So the million year ice core project is Australia's response to this really grand challenge in ice core and climate research. It aims to recover us Antarctica's longest continuous ice core.
Around a million years ago we saw a change in the periodicity of ice ages we used to see one ice age occur every 41 000 years around a million years ago this changed to one ice age every hundred thousand years. Currently we have no understanding of why this occurred.
This million year ice core will actually give us the cold hard data that enables us to test that theory.
This is the last great adventure on earth a 1300 kilometre expedition and so this season will deliver the last of the tractors the vans and accommodation all of which have been created here in Hobart.
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Heavy lifting
Video transcript
RSV Nuyina will be the workhorse of the Australian Antarctic Program
The ship will resupply Australia’s three Antarctic stations and our Macquarie Island station
[Jonathon Lumb, Chief Integrated Rating, RSV Nuyina]
With it being a cargo vessel, it’s very capable in different areas. We’ve got the two main cargo hatches at the forward end of the ship, hatch no 1, hatch no 2, so both of those holds can hold up to 48 twenty-foot containers. The no 1 hold is basically for dangerous goods, for jet fuel and those things. Hold no 2 is separated over a couple of decks.
Sometimes it can be like a big game of Tetris shifting containers and other bits of equipment around the place. There’s what’s called pontoon decks on two different levels. When we open the hatches we need to remove those pontoons so we can reach down into the decks below, lift gear out then put the pontoons back and move to the next section.
Fitting everything in needs teamwork and planning
When it comes to moving cargo on a ship, every bit of space is crucial, so it can appear that it’s pretty tight and it just takes a bit of time, a bit of guidance, a bit of training and familiarisation. But the key thing is we need to fit as much cargo on as we can, so we jam it in there so we can resupply the bases to their full potential.
Two giant muscular arms do the heavy lifting on the foredeck
The two forward cranes are both capable of lifting 55 tonnes of weight. They’re knuckle-boom cranes so they’re quite manoeuvrable. With both those cranes we can reach all areas of both those hatches, and on some occasions we’ll be able to use both at the same time.
A road for forklifts runs the entire length of the ship
We’ve got an alleyway on deck no.4 where we can forklift things down to this aft science deck, we’ve got a side platform door we can lay down to 90 degrees and use our 15 tonne helideck crane to lift them on to the back of the helideck because sometimes we’ll be doing slingloads with the helicopters ashore.
For resupplies over water, custom-built barges will ferry cargo from ship to shore
We’ve got the two barges on the foredeck, both of those are capable of carrying over 45 tonnes. So with both of those moving, there’s going to be a lot more equipment than we’ve ever been able to move before in the past, so we’re looking forward to see how that unfolds.
The ship can carry 1.9 million litres of fuel to refill station tanks
We can actually refuel two stations, in the past it’s only been one at a time, so it should be a much more efficient cargo transfer moving into the future.
Nuyina will transform Australia’s Antarctic operations
Very exciting, a lot of people have been waiting for this project for quite a number of years, to actually be over here, one of the first Australian seamen to get on here and get their hands on the gear, it’s been a great opportunity. And the skills that we’re gaining now, just being able to go through our procedures, get used to the gear, do all the training, and be ready for the Antarctic season is absolutely valuable.
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Changing of the Guard
Video transcript
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager With Aurora Australis we had an amazing new world-leading capability. All these capabilities that people had dreamed of for some time, and all these things we wanted to do we could now do, and plan to do. Work out ways to do new things that we hadn't ever done before.
Leanne Millhouse, Shipping Officer The Aurora Australis was particularly important to the Australian Antarctic Program. She was with us for 30 years and for the majority of people who work at the Antarctic Division now, she's the main vessel that they would remember.
Kim Ellis, Director It gives us the capability to operate throughout the Southern Ocean. It extends our operating range. It gives us additional days of scientific activity in the Southern Ocean. It allows us to resupply all of our Antarctic bases, and it allows us to work in collaboration with Australian and international science organisations, to deliver answers to some of the really big questions about climate, biology, and other ocean issues that are so important to us at the moment.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager It’s a big challenge to make an icebreaker Silent R. Icebreakers have to be immensely powerful to break ice. That doesn't lend itself to being silent usually.
Silent gives you a whole range of scientific capabilities. If you're silent you can hear really well, you can hear what's out there. The other thing is, if you're silent you can be stealthy, so that means that the fish don't go "what's that?", and they don't know you're there so they keep on doing what they're doing, and you don't affect them.
Rob King, Krill Biologist And it also opens up new ways of collecting specimens. We can trawl for specimens like we used to with the Aurora, but we also have this capability using the wet well system to suck specimens in through the side of the ship, even when we're transiting through sea ice. So that opens up the opportunity to work on the physiology and the behaviour of specimens that have only ever been available before to teams of divers.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager Yeah this ship has what's called DP2 level dynamic positioning, so that takes what we had in Aurora and makes it a lot better again. So that allows this ship to hold position in bad weather, 40 knot winds and currents against you in big seas, we can still stay there doing scientific research, not having to wait for the weather to improve. So you can assure yourself of the safety, that you're not going to go aground, or something go wrong and dangerous in your operation.
Kim Ellis, Director So whether it's redundancy in operating systems. Whether it's fire safety systems. Whether it's passenger management and evacuation systems, the Nuyina is leading edge in every part of that.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager We've got 48 containers in the forward hold, and we can have that much again in the back hold, or a mix of containers and vehicles and other, what's called break bulk cargo. But then of course we can put way more stuff on the hatches.
Leanne Millhouse, Shipping Officer Which means that we can put more cargo on her, and have the capability of resupplying more than one station and refuelling more than one station at a time. That's something that we've not had the ability to do before.
It'll be a very different working paradigm. Even just working out how to move around the vessel. Because she is much larger than any of the vessels that I have sailed on.
Jono Reeve, Science Coordination Manager All of Hobart is going to be just a bit surprised at how big it is. I know that when Nuyina comes into Hobart a lot of people are going to be so excited.
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Sound Science
Video transcript
Environmental Officer Helen Achurch:The moorings are comprised of a string of components including weights, acoustic release, hydrophone, external battery packs and floats. Once lowered through the sea ice the floats allow the mooring to gently descend to the sea floor to depths between 50 and 250 metres.
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