In what could be described as a major step towards resolving a mystery haunting humanity for centuries, a team of Indian scientists and engineers have begun an exploration at Rodriguez Triple Junction, a southern point in the Indian Ocean since Saturday morning.
This was announced by MA Atmanand, director, National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai, while delivering the introductory speech of the Technology Day on Saturday.
A Remote Operable Vehicle (ROV) designed and built by the engineers of NIOT and operated from Sagar Nidhi, a state-of-the-art vessel equipped with the advanced Dynamic Positioning System, is engaged in a 24X7 operation to study the interior areas of Rodriguez Triple Junction, a region in the Indian Ocean which could be reached only after eight day’s sailing from Kochi.
The RTJ is a point where the three tectonic plates meet. “The African Plate, the Indo-Australian Plate and the Antarctic Plate meet here. There are a number of hydrothermal vents (mini volcanoes ) in this region,” said Atmanand. Earlier studies have established that there were hundreds of living organisms and microbes in this point which is more than 2000 meters under the ocean.
“The general concept is that no living organisms could survive or exist in a region where there is no light or oxygen. The living organisms and microbes found in Rodriguez Triple Junction is a mystery which we want to solve. The operation is on to send the ROV to a distance of 2000 meters for video recording and if possible collecting the samples of the microbes and organisms,” said Atmanand.
According to the NIOT director, the unraveling of the mystery behind this living organisms and microbes in RTJ would open the doors to billions of questions haunting the human mind. “How organisms survive without light and oxygen is the billion dollar question which we want to answer,” he said. Scientists in NIOT who are working in the project said the RTJ expedition is more thrilling than the CERN experiment in search of the God Particle.
Atmanand’s office in NIOT had turned out to be the nerve centre of the expedition with the 22 member explorers updating him on an hourly basis about the progress of the operation through satellite telephone and internet.
The Technology Day 2013 turned out to be a Golden Day for NIOT, with another batch of scientists from the Arabian Sea reporting about the success of the home brewed Indigenous Drifter. “It is a compact instrument designed by the NIOT engineers for measuring sea surface temperature. It looks like a spherical ball with a tail-like Drouge and Global Positioning System. The instrument moves along with the ocean current. It transmits the temperature as well as its position through the INSAT satellite of the Indian Space Research Organisation,” explained Atmanand. The sea temperature and position will help in forecasting the weather.
The Drifter may not be the world’s first instrument of its kind. Indian Meteorological Department has been getting the sea temperature from INMARSAT owned by US companies. “Hereafter NIOT will give the data at a much cheaper rate to the IMD. It took us two years to perfect this technology,” said Atmanand.