Worries over conservation plans

a scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and director of its Center for Ocean, Seafloor, and Marine Observing Systems. " We were asked to do something that we've never done before as a community: think collectively about how to do ocean sciences and work together to set priorities on how to do that. " Because the 2007 NSF budgets proposed by the Bush Administration and approved by congressional appropriation committees both contain funding for the OOI, the initiative seems poised to launch when the final 2007 federal budget is approved in the fall. With the initiative, NSF proposes to spend $309.5 million over six years to build an integrated observatory network. Another $240 million would be paid out of the NSF research budget over eight years for maintenance and operations. The project will be managed by the scientist-led Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (Orion), which will contract with oceanographic institutions and companies to build the equipment. Many of the most fundamental global processes occur in the ocean, out of human observation. The majority of earthquakes and volcano eruptions occur beneath the sea, building and consuming the Earth's crust. Mineral-rich fluids erupt from the seafloor and currents move heat and moisture around the globe. The deep ocean is also home to an extraordinary array of organisms with unique adaptations that may help throw light on evolutionary processes. Advances in communications, robotics, computing, platform design, power systems and sensor technology now make it possible to get broader and deeper views of the seas over longer periods. With internet technologies, that information can be shared in real time between researchers, policymakers, teachers and students worldwide. " The establishment of observatories and observing systems, " said Bob Detrick, WHOI's vice-president for marine operations, " will transform our understanding of the oceans and their impact on the planet's processes. " The observatory-based approach to ocean science is already changing the field. In North America, a consortium of Canadian-led institutions set up the Victoria Experimental Network under the Sea (Venus) off Vancouver Island earlier this year, and a group of researchers led by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute is about to build the Monterey Accelerated Research System (MARS) off the California coast. WHOI has been operating the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory since 2002. It is expected the OOI will significantly amplify the complexity and scale of such efforts. This new wave of oceanographic research …