Sino-German Ocean Floor Observatory Network

Episodical processes such as storms and earthquakes or slowly changing phenomena like changes in climate or water contaminations are of special interest in ocean sciences but are diffcult to observe. To produce reliable data covering short episodical events as well as ongoing processes, long-term observatories are installed in areas of interest.

The Universities Bremen, Germany, and Tongji, China, aggreed on an intensified collaboration based on shallow-marine observatories. Special Chinese interest for the installation of an observatory is given in the Yangtze estuary, to monitor the East China Sea coastal ocean. Storm events and typhoons can be identified and monitored. The acquired data are used to gain assessment of their consequences and societal threats.
Interests also exist in the transfer of knowledge concerning moorings, underwater crawlers and cabled monitoring stations as well as in joint German-Chinese instruments for ocean observatories.

Constructions

In a first phase, a small observatory was installed east of Shanghai in moderately deep waters (15 m). Infrastructure consists of ~1km of submarine optical fibre composite power cable and a junction box providing power supply and signal communication for different oceanic instruments. The cable is landed on a platform, signals are transmitted by CDMA wireless to the state key lab receiver. Moored instruments were installed in the water column, three different instruments were installed in a trawl resistant cage on the sea floor. The platform is equipped with solar panels and a solar battery for continuous power supply and meteorological instruments. A borehole seismometer is planned to be installed for earthquake hazard assessment.

In a second phase, the observatory was expanded to ~20 km of cable, one central node, three junction boxes and a number of multidiscipline sensors.

Upcoming workshops

German Partners

Christoph Waldmann
Achim Kopf

Centre for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM)
Bremen University
Leobener Str.
28359 Bremen
Germany