Surfacing Secrets: Mavericks and Visionaries

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:00:00):
We shall not cease from exploration and
the end of all our exploring will be to
arrive where we started and know the
place for the first time.
Arrive through the unknown remembered
gate where the last of earth left to
discover as that which was the beginning.
At the source of the longest river, the
voice of a hidden waterfall, not known

(01:00:22):
because not looked for, but heard, half
heard, between two waves of the sea.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another
exciting episode of the How to Protect
the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew
Lewin. This is the podcast where you find
out what's happening with the ocean, how
you can speak up for the ocean and what
you can do to live for a
better ocean by taking action.
Look, the ocean is a difficult thing to
understand. It is so big, it is so vast.

(01:00:44):
70% of our planet's surface is the ocean,
yet 5% of it has been explored.
We need to know the ocean because it
affects nearly everything on this planet.
The ocean regulates the global climate
system, the weather and even the amount
of oxygen we have to breathe. Half of the
world's oxygen production comes from the
ocean. Most earthquakes occur in the

(01:01:06):
ocean. So monitoring for seismic activity
and tsunamis helps us
prepare for these natural hazards.
Understanding how the ocean is changing
also helps us prepare for climate change
impacts to ocean biodiversity and our own
food security. However, it's really
difficult to gather all that data if you
don't have the infrastructure in place.
In comes Ocean Networks Canada or ONC for

(01:01:28):
short. Canada's National Ocean
Observatory. Today, ONC operates high
tech cable observatories on the Pacific,
Atlantic and Arctic coast of Canada and
even in the Southern Ocean that provide live, continuous, and
data about how the ocean is changing. But
it wasn't always that way. In fact, up
until 1990s, ocean science was done very

(01:01:49):
differently. I'd like to share with you a
clip from the World Ocean Council Ocean
Titans film series called Beyond the
Abyss Ocean Intelligence for a
Sustainable Planet. In this film about
the Ocean Networks Canada, it's president
and CEO, Kate Moran explains how maverick
scientists turn the idea of continuous
real time ocean
monitoring into a reality.
Ocean Networks Canada was founded by

(01:02:10):
three mavericks in oceanography who
decided that we needed to put sensors in
the ocean so we could understand it in
real time. Prior to Ocean Networks
Canada, data was collected on ships here
and there, one point at one time, and
then the next day the ocean changes. So
we couldn't get an understanding of the
full picture of the ocean.
University of Victoria professors, Emory

(01:02:32):
is Verena to Nickliff and Chris Barnes
were two of those founding visionaries of
ONC 19 years ago. They were the directors
of ONC's two major cable observatories
off the west coast of British Columbia,
Venus and Neptune. They were soon joined
by other mavericks all driven by a spirit
of adventure and discovery.
It's a bit of a dream of mine, not only
to be joined by folks from Oceans

(01:02:53):
Networks Canada on the podcast, but also
to be able to kick off this new series,
Surfacing Secrets, Explore the Ocean,
Know the Planet. One episode a month for
the next 12 months talking about the
innovative work that's being done at
Ocean Networks Canada and its partners.
Today I am absolutely delighted to
welcome three ocean science Mavericks to
the podcast. Kate Moran, ONC's president

(01:03:16):
CEO, Benoit Piran, ONC's corporate
innovation and technology officer and a
key architect behind the digital and
physical infrastructure that makes ONC
sensor, video and sound data accessible
to anyone anywhere in the world.
And John Delaney, a professor emeritus
from the University of Washington in the
United States, one of the original

(01:03:36):
Mavericks, an oceanographer whose early
ideas about a cable network of deep ocean
sensors helped revolutionize science
today. Here is the interview with Kate
Moran, Benoit Piran and John Delaney.
Enjoy the interview and
I will talk to you after.
Hey Kate, hey Benoit, hey John, welcome
to the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
Are you ready to talk

(01:03:57):
about Ocean Networks Canada?
We are. Absolutely. Wonderful. I am very,
very excited about this. This has been on
a bucket list of mine for quite some time
to have not all, not only all three of
you on the podcast, but to have a series
where we can really dive deep into Ocean
Networks Canada and find out more about
how it came to be, what it's all about

(01:04:19):
and what you have planned in the future and all the projects that we've done.
And I feel like one episode is not
enough. So this is a kickoff of a series
that we're going to do for this for this
podcast, which I'm very, very excited to
do and to meet all three of you to talk
about the origins today of Ocean Networks
Canada. I've seen a lot of videos. I've
seen your careers as you've gone through

(01:04:40):
and seeing it on on on not only the website, but on social media and so forth.
And I've been very happy to be able to
watch that. And now I get to talk to you.
So this is a very huge. This is a huge
pleasure for me. And we're going to get
into all of how and see got together and
became own see as it is today. But before
we do, why don't we find out a little bit
about yourself? So why don't you just let
us know who you are and what you do. So Kate, we'll start off with you.

(01:05:02):
Well, sure. My name is Kate Moran. I'm
president and CEO of Ocean Networks
Canada. And I'm an ocean engineer
oceanographer and I've been working in
the ocean for my entire career. Happy to
be here. Thanks for inviting us. You bet. And Benoit.
Yeah. So my name is been appearing a
corporate innovation and technology

(01:05:25):
officer at Ocean Network Canada. Now I've
been with Ocean Networks Canada and
helping build the Neptune Observatory
System in its data management since 2004.
since 2004. I was born in Belgium. I
lived in Germany
supporting data management
for astronomers for almost as long as

(01:05:46):
I've been here at Ocean Works Canada.
And John. Yeah I'm a retired professor
from the University of Washington
School of Oceanography and I kind of
started my career as a geologist
mapping limestones in the Shenandoah

(01:06:07):
Valley and then got a PhD at the
University of Arizona and my first job
and only job I ever had was working at
the University of Washington and took the
job in oceanography before I'd ever
been to sea so it was a great eye-opener
when I first went to sea in
in 2020 or sorry 1980 had my first Alvin

(01:06:32):
dive so since then I've been studying
underwater volcanoes
offshore here and around the world and I
was involved in developing
the fiber optic cable that
goes out of Oregon across the Wanda Fuka
tectonic plate as a
complement to what ONZ has done in the
Neptune program. You know you all have

(01:06:55):
had such amazing careers even before you
started with ONZ so I'd love to hear a
little bit about how you just
briefly how you all got started in your
careers. Okay let's start with you you
know you grew up in in Pittsburgh and you
know being an ocean
engineer was that always

(01:07:17):
something on you on your mind is that
always a dream of yours to do that or was
that something that changed throughout
your academic career.
Yeah well I actually grew up in eastern
Pennsylvania but went went and took an
engineering degree at the University of
Pittsburgh and I I did that because of
the fact that it was the beginning of
Earth Day and when I was in high school

(01:07:38):
and I was applying for University and my
physics teacher whose name was I will
always remember was Mr.
Missle. He he said I should go into
engineering and I didn't know what that
was so I it was in the days when you
wrote that wrote and got your catalogs

(01:07:59):
and the University of Pittsburgh actually
had environmental engineering as part of
their curriculum so I applied there and
was accepted so I was really interested
in and the Earth at that time in terms of
you know a clean Earth
and all that kind of thing.
And then when I graduated I took a job

(01:08:20):
working in environmental cleanup for a
big company that made toilet
paper and it made me crazy.
I quit and I took advice from another
professor of Pittsburgh to go to graduate
school in ocean engineering in Rhode
Island and I went to see for the first
time in January of the first year I was

(01:08:42):
there in the North Atlantic and got
terribly seasick but
fell in love with it.
So that's how I guess. Do you do you
still get seasick to this day?
Well it's just you suggested the first
day. Yeah. I you know I've developed a
technique. You know, all teens don't lie
down. Go out on deck a lot. Gotcha. Get

(01:09:04):
the fresh air. Mm hmm. Yeah. Nice. Nice.
Okay. Ben, well, how about yourself? What
really got you started to learning more
and working more within the ocean coming
from Belgium and moving and
living in Germany for a bit?
Well, my degree was in computer science.
Okay. And so but but I had always had a

(01:09:24):
very strong interest in the sciences and
decided that I wanted to continue to
support science and I was lucky enough to
find a job with a large international
organization in Europe that was meant to
deliver telescopes to the astromechal
community in the world.
And so after a co-op term there, they

(01:09:49):
decided to hire me, which was great.
And I started eventually long story short
build the data management system for on
the one hand the Hubble Space Telescope
copy in Europe and then continuing on to
building the local data archive for the
European Southern
Observatory, which was my employer.

(01:10:10):
After a number of years, the family
needed to change. I had essentially
applied to positions here, a place that I
already knew through my
connections in astronomy.
And I guess fate had it that I had two
job offers here in Victoria in 2004, one
of which was to either join the local

(01:10:32):
observatory, which was good.
And the other one was to join the
University of Victoria to start building
the data management for this new nascent
observatory that was
going to be called Neptune.
And you know, you still like to join
things you knew and start from scratch.
So this is what I decided
to do. The rest is history.

(01:10:53):
Starting something from scratch after
having such a great career already was
did you find it challenging in terms of
coming one to a different country,
different continent and then being able
to start over not only from a family
perspective, but also
with this this new project?
That was definitely a challenge. But I
was I was ready for it, essentially. And

(01:11:15):
yeah, it was it was not easy, perhaps
more difficult than I anticipated
initially due to a number of factors that
I can go into a later
stage if that's necessary.
But in the end, you know, I'm still very
happy and proud of all the

(01:11:36):
accomplishments that I made both in my
previous career. And now, of course, I
still with ocean networks, Canada.
Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a phenomenal
career if you if you ask me, just in
terms of what you've been able to
accomplish in such a short time. So it's that's that's amazing.
John, how about yourself? You know, how
did you how did you get started in terms

(01:11:58):
of you kind of mentioned it a little bit
before, but what really got you to
wanting to work in the ocean?
Well, I took a job in oceanography.
That'll do it. Then it dawned on me that, well, perhaps
I should go to sea. I was very fortunate
to be invited by a fellow from Woods Hole

(01:12:22):
named Bill Brian to go on a cruise that
he and his colleagues had put together in
the cane fracture zone somewhere between Bermuda and the Azores.
And we went and dredged rocks from the
sea floor. It's a it's a not exactly a

(01:12:43):
delicate instrument to
dredge the sea floor. You right.
It's a brutal act with a with a huge
weight on the end of a long wire.
But I loved it. I was just like Kate,
it's been my first time and I had been
working in a laboratory at Johnson Space
Center before that. And before that, I

(01:13:05):
had worked in the mining industry. I used
to be an economic geologist, which should
resonate with some of
your Canadian colleagues.
Yes.
I was looking for copper, lead, zinc,
gold, silver, that type of thing. Right.
But once I had taken the job at the
University of Washington, I just and had
gone to see on this one cruise in 1978. I

(01:13:28):
never looked back. I never
went back into a laboratory.
I was better on the fantail shoveling
rocks than I was twirling the dials on a
secondary ion mass spectrometer, which is
what I was doing. And so it just became I
don't know, I just it
just blossomed for me.

(01:13:50):
And, and we, of course, in Seattle, you
know, just south of Vancouver Island, we
were close to the one to Fuka tectonic
plate, but not very many people had been
out there. So proposals to go out and
literally dredge with a basically a
gigantic chain bag, we dragged along the

(01:14:10):
seafloor and picked up rocks.
And one of the rocks we picked up was in
the endeavor segment of the one to Fuka
Ridge, but it had two worms in it. It was
not it was not lava. It was a chunk of
sulfide. It was about something like 85
pounds actually came out.
And Margaret Tyvee from Woods Hole

(01:14:32):
actually did her master's thesis on those
rocks. So that's when I first it's that's
as close as I came to where these folks
have taken last 35 years
or more and have worked.
It was in Canadian waters that one of the
extensions of their cable goes to exactly

(01:14:55):
that that hydrothermal vent field, which
I spent a large
fraction of my life studying.
I can I dream about it at night.
It's true. It's really weird.
If you've never had submarine
hydrothermal system
dreams, you've missed something.
You haven't lived until you have those
types of dreams. I get it.

(01:15:17):
Now it's interesting to see all three of
you come from such a diverse background
to be able to work together. Obviously,
you have a much larger team as well.
But to be able to work and be able to
come up with with a concept like this.
John, you did a Ted talk in I believe it

(01:15:38):
was in 2010. I think it was at Sylvia
Earls Ted X talk if I remember correctly,
you did a Ted talk talking about this
system of basically a data observatory
beneath the sea, but well beneath the sea
that a lot of people weren't really
thinking about at that time with the
technology that was coming around.
Where did that thought come from and and

(01:16:01):
and how did it go from just sort of a
thought to something
of what we see today?
Well, the 2010 talk was on a ship in the
Galapagos. It was a party as a party that
Sylvia decided to have.
And she gave her Ted talk in 2009 and
somebody walked out of the audience and

(01:16:23):
handed her a million dollar check and
said, what do you want to do with it?
Wow. And so she's a party on somebody
else canceled and I was I was inserted at
the last minute. Anyway, I had also lived
in the Galapagos for six months back in
1972 70 and 72 inside the volcanoes.

(01:16:44):
That's when I first got wet my appetite,
so to speak for volcanoes. But in I had
started a program within the United
States that was called the Ridge program.
R I D G E, which is Ridge
interdisciplinary global experiments with
a call it much of colleagues.

(01:17:05):
And we the goal was to study submarine
hydrothermal systems and the active
volcanic systems that supported them and
and it was funded for a full 20 years by
the National Science Foundation.
So that was a lot of fun. But toward the
I guess somewhere in the vicinity of

(01:17:26):
1991, I was at the American Geophysical
Union meeting in San San Francisco and
sitting in a bar with a guy named Alan
Chave, who was part of this program.
And I was complaining about how hard it
is to be in the submarine and look out
the window, which is three or four inches

(01:17:48):
thick and about as big around as that.
Yeah. And not be able to touch the rocks
because I've been field geologists. I was
used to reaching and you can't you can
see it, but you can't touch.
And I guess, you know, the first time
around your, you know, you and my first
dives were in 4000 feet of 4000 meters.

(01:18:09):
Wow. Water on on the
Mid Atlantic Ridge and so.
So I was complaining to him and he said,
well, you know, there's something new
going on at Bell Labs and it's called
fiber optic cables and we have recently
laid a cable across the Atlantic, which I
think was called tat eight.
And and he said, and now they're getting

(01:18:32):
rid of some of the old cables. Maybe we
could pick one up and do something with
it. And that was the beginning of the
idea from my point of view. And so long
story short, it's too late
for a long story to be short.
We finally got funds from the National
Science Foundation and we committed
ourselves to working very closely with

(01:18:53):
our Canadian colleagues because my target
was the one that took a tectonic plate
and I think let's just turn
the old thing into a laboratory.
And so we spent a lot of time with our
Canadian colleagues and we were about to
launch things together and then 9 11
happened. Our budget collapsed and the

(01:19:15):
Canadians got their money that same year
with the proviso that they
had to move ahead aggressively.
And sadly, the two programs diverged. We
never got our money until 2009. So it
took a long time. And so that's I'm
hoping that I can capture the interest of

(01:19:36):
Canadians to play together in a bigger
sandbox than we have been individually.
Yeah, I'm gonna stop there. There's a
lot. You know, you ask an Irishman to
tell a story and you really
have to give him a time limit.
I love it. I think it's great. I love it.
Kate, just kind of continue on with that

(01:19:58):
as as John was mentioning, you know, he's
trying to build his program. It got
delayed. But then the Canadian program
happened. Was that money that that really
birthed ONC at the time?
Well, I wasn't here at that time. So that
was two I call I called John Delania
Maverick and the two people that were
here Mavericks, Marina, Toni Cliff, and
Chris Barnes and both Chris and Verena

(01:20:20):
were the recipients of funding, mostly
Chris for the Neptune Canada at that time
was called Neptune Canada.
Right. And it was from a relatively new
funding mechanism in Canada called the
Canada Foundation for Innovation. And
they developed a new program that was
called the International Competition. And
it was quite a rigorous competition. And

(01:20:42):
Chris, through Chris's leadership, they
won that award to
basically build Neptune.
So that was and they got on with it. They
moved ahead, worked with Alcatel and then
arrived several or three years after in
2004. Is that right? Yeah, I guess it was
part of the very first people to be hired

(01:21:03):
for the Neptune Observatory
establishment. Right.
Yeah. And so that so that started the
work of designing, engaging the science
community to decide on sites where should
the nodes go? Of course, John's dream
came true when the Endeavor segment of

(01:21:23):
the Wanda Fooker Ridge was part of the of
this of the build for the
Neptune Canada Observatory.
And then Verena was also in her Maverick
way. I'm testing the technology by
building in 2006 through somewhat
separate funding, a smaller version of
Neptune called Venus in installing the

(01:21:45):
first cable in sandwich inlet in 2006 and
basically demonstrating the concept that
John thought of quite a
number of years earlier.
And then Venus expanded in 2008 into the
Southern Sailor Sea. Some people call it
the Strait of Georgia. And then at the
end of 2009 when John's team finally got

(01:22:07):
their money, Neptune was turned on.
And so I arrived here in 2011 in
September and I came here first and we
took over Chris's position. Chris decided
to retire as Neptune Canada director and
I became first director of Neptune
Canada. And then the following year I

(01:22:29):
became president of
Ocean Networks Canada.
Now to have this type of technology, not
only between the US and Canada, but just
for Canada to get that that funding as a
Canadian scientist, we don't have a lot
of funding in Canada to do ocean work.
How important was this for not only the

(01:22:51):
University of Victoria, but just for
Canada in general to get this funding and
to be able to lay these cables to be able
to put this this
technology in the water at a time.
You know, where technology was really
ramping up in terms of, you know, cell
phones and computers and the
miniaturization of computers and the
power that we can hold. How important was

(01:23:13):
that for for Canada?
Well, it was incredibly significant and I
think the leadership of the University of
Victoria was also part of the alignment
of making this work at the time. The
president of the University, David
Turpin, an oceanographer in his own right

(01:23:36):
took the chance to actually receive this
money and start this build a risky, risky
thing for a relatively small, great university.
A relatively small university to take on
and especially because in Canada, it's
quite different than what what's in terms
of how how funding supports these big

(01:23:56):
infrastructure projects because in
Canada, the University of Victoria
essentially owns the infrastructure.
So that means the president and the he
had to convince the board of governors
and university to take on this risk. So
in comparison in the United States, when
the National Science Foundation invest in
infrastructure, they have the backstop of
the federal government in terms of, you

(01:24:18):
know, replacements and support.
So that was a really important aspect. I
don't think if David had not been here
making that case, you could imagine that
that risk may have been too much to
handle. So kudos to the University of
Victoria for stepping up to the plate.
But of course, when I arrived, there was

(01:24:41):
a competition to provide operating funds
for this infrastructure that was now
built. So it was tempting was turned on
20 2009. And then Chris and the
university scraped together
to get money to operate it.
But there was a competition that's that
was the proposal was due in September of
2011 when I arrived. And then that was

(01:25:02):
really for four of Canada's major
research infrastructures that have
different name called
major science initiatives.
And to have an ocean program at the top
of the scientific infrastructure game in
Canada was huge. It meant that Canada was
a player in oceanography in a major way.

(01:25:22):
And so, you know, I arrived here. I was
surprised I got the job.
But I was happy to contribute at least I
contributed one of the aspects of the
proposal that I think has been very
helpful. And I used to I used to be in
the United States has to be the director
of the ocean drilling program.
So I had a good understanding of big
programs and the contracts, the risks

(01:25:45):
associated with them. And so I asked to
make sure that we included in that
proposal, the fact that we could have a
self insurance fund with the university.
Because if we didn't have that when we
have things that cause trials that take
out our nodes, etc, we wouldn't have had
money to to reinstall those things. So
that was my big contribution to a

(01:26:06):
proposal that had mostly been written.
I would like to say that I was thrilled
when they hired her.
Oh, I can imagine she had a reputation of
getting things done. Yeah, that's that's
important. That's definitely important.
But why like, you know, talking about the
technology at the time you coming on and
and being one of the first hires for for

(01:26:27):
ONC and the Neptune and being able to put
it, you know, in the state that that was
in, you know, putting it online.
What was that like for you coming in on
that and and your team to be able to to
do that work? What were the what were the
challenges that you faced
when you when you first started?
So when I first started, of course, this

(01:26:47):
kit has explained Venus
was in construction mode.
Neptune just got their funding. And so we
were in design mode and trying to figure
out where where bits and pieces of
equipment would be installed.
And at the time there was little interest
or little focus on the data that would be

(01:27:09):
coming out of that, despite the fact that
obviously and something
that's apparent to everyone.
But the main product of Ocean Networks
Canada in our observatory is the data.
But to get good data, you need resources
to to to not only talk to the instruments
and through software and make these
software packages, but also importantly

(01:27:31):
to describe the data that would be coming
from these instruments over many years.
The description of these instruments, the
description of their calibration and so
on is essential to do good science
without without that you are unable to
understand those instruments.
So there was a there was a culture shock

(01:27:52):
whereby people who were interested in
building these facilities like for an
atomic life and her people and Chris
Barnes and the people he hired at the
time, they were so focused on the
hardware aspects
because that's what's visible.
That's what people are excited about.
That's what's not been done before.
And so convincing people like Verena and

(01:28:15):
Chris that they these proposals for
funding needed a significant dedication
to the manpower that
would lead the data side.
That was a bit of a challenge.
Eventually, thanks to the good
understanding of Kate of the importance
of that. We got the resources and today.

(01:28:36):
We'll talk about that later probably. But
today, a third of the staff of Ocean
Networks Canada is dedicated to data. And
so I think this this
shows the importance of it.
But it's also the reward of having done
that is such that we're we're considered
as an example of best practices when it

(01:28:59):
comes to managing data in science and
particularly in the oceans.
And I would like to add that we had the
same battle at our side. We got plenty of
money for hardware, but we had a struggle
to manage and to strategize and the

(01:29:19):
architecture for the data flow and the
data use by the community.
So that for some reason at that time, you
know, hardware nuts and bolts was seemed
like it was more important. I just want
to inject one thing. And I, Andrew,
forgive me for anything on my own, but I
remember sitting at my desk.
There's there's an irony to this and it's

(01:29:41):
for me a terrible irony.
I was sitting at my desk in the mid 90s
and I started thinking, if we're going to
start a program, we need a name.
And I started thinking Northeast,
Northeast Pacific, Northeast Pacific Time
Series, undersea network experiments.

(01:30:07):
Jesus, that says new Neptune. And and so
we we we just used it, you know, it just
became what we used in
the late 90s and early.
And then when we started getting our
money, some of the people that Kate had
actually dealt with in Washington, D.C.,

(01:30:27):
but wisely moved to Canada to some extent
to get away from decided
that this Neptune business.
That sounds too much like John Delaney.
We can't have that. Let's call it the
regional scale nodes.
So the name in the United States is
called the regional scale nodes, which
sounds like something like the bubonic

(01:30:50):
plague from my point of view.
But I am absolutely thrilled that Neptune
in the hands of Kate actually became as
elegant and as widespread
and heavily used as it has.
Well, I also think, too, when you start
to use the name of planets and we there's

(01:31:10):
that sort of that idea that's that's
floating around that we know more about
outer space than we do about most of the
ocean, especially the deep ocean that if
you name it after a planet, it's like
you're just you're discovering
a planet down underneath or discovering
something new. That's how I take it
anyway. When I when I hear, you know,
like Neptune in Venus. So I like that.
There's a pithier way
of saying that, Andrew.

(01:31:33):
How's that? We know more about the moons
behind than we know
about the ocean's bottom.
That's a new one for me.
I like that. I like that a lot. I was
getting clipped for sure.
I'm on the data side. Absolutely.

(01:31:54):
Because, you know, Ben was being humble.
I mean, he actually I think there was
pressure to actually hire a company to
develop what now we call the digital
infrastructure or oceans three.
And Ben was pushed to make sure that it
was built in house. And now we have moved
to the stage in Canada that we're

(01:32:16):
demonstrating to the other operators of
major research infrastructure that it's
not just the physical pieces.
It's that's part of the build. But it's
what we call digital infrastructure. And
so we now at Ocean Network Canada have a
director of physical infrastructure and a
director of digital infrastructure. And
they have importance in terms of how we

(01:32:37):
deliver for a wide range of stakeholders.
Many of us appreciate
what you did. Absolutely.
Thank you. I saw the thread that
represented a contract with a commercial
company as being a
potential open ended money pit.
Oh, no. I had witnessed what had happened

(01:33:00):
in the US with the
Hubble Space Telescope.
They had hired companies at the time back
in the 80s or the 80s that came to cost
30 million dollars US at the time. They
had to scrap it off completely. Throw it
away and start from scratch hiring their
own people to get done
what they needed done.

(01:33:21):
And I had similar experience with the
ocean drilling program and had to come in
and basically save the day to get a data
system up and running. So thank you, Ben.
Yes, thank you, Ben.
You're standing there.
Now, you know, once everything is put
together and we have the not only the
hardware infrastructure, but the digital

(01:33:42):
infrastructure as well and data started
to flow in and we
started to see the data.
I think you mentioned earlier, it was it
was hard for people to take the data and
do something with it. Was it was it
difficult to get like disseminate the
data? Was that the idea was this this,
you know, this system
was going to bring in data.
I know a number of different scales and a

(01:34:03):
number of different topics and
disseminate it to, you know, the
scientific community. Is it was that the
idea or was it to hold it a little bit
and just have people at University of
Victoria and University of Washington and
other universities that contributed money
to it to be able to do it or was it
available to everybody?
So, I think there was a big decision from

(01:34:23):
the get go that all the data would be
available right away to anyone who wanted
them. And because we have a cable that
connects the instruments to shore, we
could do that in real time.
Right. So, that was that was a basic
principle. Whereas in astronomy where it
came from, there was always this one year

(01:34:45):
priority period for
all the data that we did.
We decided it was not going to be the
case, except in extremely unusual
circumstances that we would basically
make the data openly available and it it
revealed to be a modern approach that has
been appreciated by even the funding

(01:35:06):
agencies for sure, because they could see
the multiplication and
leveraging of the funds.
They've devoted to these programs and
make sure that being used by as many
people as possible to maximize the
return. So that was one of the challenges
that we overcame right away. Another one,
if I made it, I could

(01:35:27):
mention is the fact.
Where it came from where again in
astronomy, you build these large
telescopes are way too big for any
specific individual or even a university
to own. They belong to the entire
community. And so an individual
astronomers is not allowed to operate it.

(01:35:49):
You have to introduce what they called
service observing. So you don't touch the
dials, essentially. You define what you
want to see observed. We give you you get
a piece of time on the instrument and the
data are collected and hopefully can go
away and do your science.

(01:36:10):
So whereas that was already done in the
1980s for astronomy when it came to the
ocean until basically
10 20 years ago now.
The modus operandi for researchers was
that they were going to see that we're

(01:36:31):
going to take their equipments and the
grad students with them. They were going
to be going only in the summer because
that's the only time that you could do
anything in the northern hemisphere.
And so we collected data, maybe
transferred the data in the computer, put
it in a drawer until you have time to
look at it. And this culture was

(01:36:55):
prevailing still at the time. And that's
what another that was another challenge
to convince people that no data
management was important to
maximize the science return.
So again, we had to face the culture
shock. So this or the users had to face
the culture shock that we were trying to
try to impose on them because suddenly we

(01:37:16):
were making it their disposal tool.
And so that was going to be providing
them a lot of new capabilities, but was
also very much different from what they
were used to deal with in the past. So
another one of the challenges to overcome
in my position at the time.

(01:37:37):
There are a couple of others that are
really important. One is graduate
students who have a master's thesis to
finish in a year or two. If they're using
data that is flowing out the end of a
garden hose to everyone in the world.
And so that was another cultural wrinkle

(01:38:01):
within oceanography. And the third
cultural wrinkle is that oceanography,
unlike astronomy, most of the data in
astronomy is one form
or another wavelength.
And so in oceanography, there's the
physics of what you're studying, which

(01:38:21):
comes in many forms. There's the
chemistry of what you're studying, which
comes in other forms and
sloppy water type things.
And so the complexity of oceanography
compared to astronomy is I won't say it's

(01:38:44):
greater or less, but it's very different.
And so you have all those tangible
elements that in fact what Benoit
referred to is many times chief
scientists and their
immediate acolytes would bring in the
data home and not everybody got to look
at it for as much as a decade, half a

(01:39:05):
decade sometimes. And so the idea of
having a constant somewhat endless flow
of semi-infinite amount of
information was a great shock.
Shock. And I think Benoit was the
pioneer. Yeah. And Kate's absolutely
right. He is. You're way too modest.

(01:39:30):
Thanks.
What I want to highlight as well, and I
think you touched on another challenge
that I wanted to raise at some point
during this conversation as well, which
is the diversity of types of data that
would be coming from the observatory and
that from a, I mean, leave the cultural
alone now from a

(01:39:51):
technological aspects from a
techniques and level of effort
perspective. The fact that we had to deal
with so many different types of data, but
also different types of instruments was
in fact one of the big technical
challenges, essentially something that

(01:40:11):
would cost us because it
takes a lot of labor to address.
Right. And we needed also to design the
observatories and the data management
system, the digital part of the of the
initiative in a way that would allow for
the existence of many, many different
types of instruments
that would change over time.
That would evolve, that we would not make

(01:40:34):
ourselves. Also we were the mercy of
commercial companies that would build
those and would decide to
change the nature of on you.
So we had to build a system that was
really flexible and was able to evolve
with instruments, change and

(01:40:54):
support new types of systems.
And that's why today we have from simple
temperature sensors all the way to 4K
cameras streaming video to hydrophone
streaming sounds from the oceans all the
time. And on top of that, those fancy
current measurement devices that produce

(01:41:15):
matrices of tons of numbers all the time.
So the structure of the data, their
diversity and the constant change of
techniques and technologies in these
instruments is a challenge. And today
we're, you know, we continue to witness
changes in those techniques. So that's

(01:41:38):
exciting. It keeps us alive.
Sure.
Our job is not boring. That's, that's for
sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Always
always adapting right as one does. Let's
talk. I love the talk about the
infrastructure and the data that's coming
in. Let's talk about some of the major

(01:41:58):
projects that have come out that and
discoveries that have come out from the
data from from ONC. So, okay, you know,
as someone who's obviously the CEO and
president, what what highlights that you
would like the people here on on the
podcast to know about?
In terms of what has come out of of the
data and what projects have been really a

(01:42:19):
highlight for you personally and for ONC.
Well, I think one of the most important
aspects is now that we have we're a
little bit long in the tooth in terms of
the observatory, we're starting to get
the time that the amount of time to
enable us to understand the climate
impacts on the ocean.
Not that that's something that we want to

(01:42:42):
herald, but it's really we we have to
understand it to act. And so now we're
actually seeing oxygen changes,
temperature changes. And what's what I'm
happy to say is that because of the fact
that we have real time data, when there
were almost like an
earlier alert system change.

(01:43:03):
So a couple of summers ago, we saw oxygen
changing at one of our coastal sites that
hadn't happened before that we knew of.
And so that then triggered a whole group
of people to go out and capture more data
to understand that. In fact, the low
auction events that were common at that
time in the offshore, the Pacific

(01:43:24):
Northwest of the United
States was now reaching Canada.
So understanding these is really
important to talk about climate change in
a way that has impact. We also were able
to monitor the impacts on the coastal
zone during what was called
the big heat or the warm blob.
Yeah. And and that had economic impact in

(01:43:48):
both the Canada and the United States. So
these changes are not only the fact that
we're seeing life forms moving into new
environments, but in fact, it is an
economic impact on the country.
So I'll just that has now led us to in
our in our new strategic plan to we have

(01:44:10):
three goals. And the third
one is on on climate action.
And so what we've now been moving towards
I'm really proud of are coming up with
with research areas to work on how we can
remove CO2 from the atmosphere using
ocean solutions. Not that we're
advocating anything as an organization,
but we're developing observations so that

(01:44:32):
we can test these ideas,
determine their efficacy,
and then provide information that could
value them based on the amount of carbon
that's removed from the atmosphere. So
that will be an important aspect of how
we as a scientific community contribute
to advancing these new technologies.
But I'm going to stop and just say one

(01:44:54):
thing that everyone here at the
organization is extremely proud of and
that is the fact that we have starting in
2012 and it was I arrived as Neptune
director early September 2011.
I went to Ben when I said, there's this
Canadian high Arctic research station
that was announced by then Prime

(01:45:15):
Minister, and two years before and
there's nothing up there, we should put
an observatory up there. Okay.
And he said, Okay, so in 2012 we
installed the first cable small cable
observatory in Cambridge by Nunavut. And
we were, we were not very we were being,
you know, colonial in

(01:45:37):
our ways. Yeah, that way.
And we put a sea ice sickness monitor on
it. There's a company in Vancouver Island
that measures sea ice thickness, because
what they see I said there. And we
learned that the community wanted to have
that sea ice data showcased in the co op
store, because they needed to know how
thick the ice was to take the shortcut
to the airport or go out and hunt on the

(01:45:57):
ice. And it was like this big aha moment
of we need to do this for other coastal
indigenous communities and that set us on
this path of much more humbly engaging
with now almost 40 different coastal
communities in Canada
and delivering data that's
here best introducably to

(01:46:45):
Youth Science Ambassador, Mia Ottokiak
from Cambridge Bay,
Nunavut. She was there as a
high school student when it was first
installed. Graduated from high school,
became one of the first
students in her class that actually went
into a science career in
the government of Nunavut.
And then she was invited to the UN Decade

(01:47:08):
Conference two years
ago and actually made a
speech about the importance of observing
the ocean from her
perspective in Cambridge Bay,
Nunavut. So all of that, we're very proud
of that and really happy that we can
continue to do that.
And I think that's a very, very important
point that we perhaps
can all make and that is

(01:47:28):
a path forward would be to creatively
merge the philosophies and
attitudes of Indigenous people
with cutting edge technology. Their
philosophy and attitude was reverence for
the environment that
they lived in and supported them instead

(01:47:50):
of what early on for sure
was when the Europeans came
to the new world. The goal was to get in,
get rich and get out and
care what they left behind.
So I think what Kate has pointed out is
goes back to this cultural
groundbreaking effort. There are many
levels of this cultural point, but I

(01:48:13):
think it's extremely
important and I think Neptune Canada has
certainly led the way in
that effort and they deserve
tremendous credit there. I don't know
where that kind of credit
comes from. I guess they continue
to get funding. So that's kind of thin
gruel compared to, you
know, there should be a Nobel
Prize for fiber optic cables. I'm

(01:48:35):
kidding. Well, but I mean,
there's a lot of challenges to
to also put up cables in the Arctic,
right? Like this is not,
we're not talking about
the friendliest environments to work in
these. These have been often very
difficult and challenging
places to work in, obviously with climate
change, helping that out in terms of
making things a little

(01:48:56):
easier to work there and be able to lay
this type of cable. Was it a difficult
thing to do to lay this
fiber optic cable in the Arctic? Well,
it's in a coastal
environment. So it's a relatively
simple, but certainly that we had to
design it so that the challenge in these
sea ice covered areas is that
the land fast ice can take out the cable.

(01:49:17):
So we developed a
technique to protect those cables.
And in fact, last January, we we decided
to go even further and
we installed a coastal
observatory in Antarctica. And we have
developed our talk about our physical
infrastructure team.
They are amazing at developing these
coastal observatories that
are relatively easy to install,

(01:49:38):
protected from sea ice, for example. And
incredibly, they have incredibly
developed innovative ways to
maintain them. And that continues to
improve over time, so much so that we are
planning to install many more
coastal observatories in Canada because
Canada has the longest
coastline in the world.

(01:49:58):
And most of it's in the Arctic and most
of it's not very well understood. And so
in addition to developing
these coastal observatories, we have
decided to move forward with developing
systems to measure things
like coastal radar, which is measuring
surface currents that are
renewable energy powered,

(01:50:19):
compact, you can deploy them by
helicopter so that we can begin to
populate these areas of the Arctic
with power systems and coastal radar, but
possibly other other
sensor systems to build up that
presence in the Arctic to understand our
own coastline. So those
are the new things that are
coming. I'll just come back to one other
thing I'm proud of, and it stems back to

(01:50:41):
somewhat of Benoit's background,
and John's decision to name Neptune, you
know, thinking about planets and space.
We also have a terrific physical
operations team. In 2018, the
high energy particle physics

(01:51:01):
community knocked on our door out of the
blue and said, we want to install a
neutrino observatory, and we heard that
you know how to put things in the water
and make it work. And I was telling John
about this this morning, and within
eight months, we designed, built and
installed a test neutrino observatory at
our deepest location.
And that has led that community now to

(01:51:22):
secure funding to build
probably the world's biggest
neutrino observatory going forward. It
will be similar to the neutrino
observatory in Antarctica that that's
owned by the US National
Science Foundation called ice cube. And
that's moving ahead a pace. And we're
really proud of that.
Yeah. Because as we mentioned

(01:51:44):
the diversity of data, there's every
science in the ocean. So it's like crazy
to call oceanography.
It's every science in the
ocean. Yeah. So that's what we're
measuring for every, every one of those
sciences we deliver data. But this is
like, I mean, this is the technology that
that we we know what we can do is just a
matter of putting it into place and

(01:52:05):
almost almost being there. And I think,
yeah, a lot of a lot of funding. And I
think that obviously that that's a big a
big part of it. But if we're going to
continue to explore the oceans as crucial
as they are, we're going to need this
type of funding. We're going to need places like ONC to continue to explore the ocean.
We're going to need places like ONC to
continue to bring that data to people on

(01:52:25):
a regular on a regular basis. But what
just from a from a data infrastructure
standpoint and a digital infrastructure
standpoint, what are some of the things
that you're working on?
And I think that's what we could expect
to come up on the next on the next on the
horizon. What does that said before,
there's always something new coming up.
And it's not coming from us. It's coming

(01:52:47):
from the community of researchers who
build new types of instruments. It's
coming from industry who invents new
methods to to collect data. And this is
all very exciting. And so to me, what's
going to be coming out for us
in the next year to five years.

(01:53:07):
Is those new instruments that have a
relationship with what is commonly called
fiber sensing. You take a fiber optic and
you shine a laser light very frequently,
like hundreds of times per second. And in

(01:53:28):
between the shots of light, you look at
the look at the backscatter, you look at
the reflections of this particular
flash of light at every point along the
fiber because of the impurities on the
glass of the fiber, you are going to have
these reflections. And if if you observe

(01:53:49):
this, like a lot, a lot of times 100 sums
per second, you can start building a
concept of changes that occur in the
fiber at a very fine resolution, meaning
not only spatial resolution along the fiber length, but also the
changes that occur along the fiber
length, which could be up to 100
kilometers, but also sense very precisely

(01:54:14):
the changes that occur to the fiber from
when it's subjected to strain stresses,
temperature changes and all that. So
essentially you by continuous observing
that in collecting this humongous amount
of data, you can start mapping out along
the fiber the changes
that occur due to vibration,

(01:54:35):
be they seismic or acoustic, or you can
get a sense of the temperature
fluctuations over time. And you get this
information multiple times per second, at
every meter along that fiber. So you can

(01:54:57):
imagine the data volume that will come
out of it. Yeah, it's going to be orders
of magnitude more than
whatever we're dealing with today.
And, and again, back to the culture clash
with the community, they have to learn
quickly now not only to deal with data
365 days a year, which is what

(01:55:17):
observatories like Neptune and Venus and
others put them in front of, they're going to have to deal with a lot more data now.
We're going to have to, to provide the
community with we're going to have to
help them dealing with the data volume by
providing new tools. And so this is this

(01:55:39):
continuous struggle as it were that not
only we have to make people understand
that there's data can come in continuously.
It's going to be too much for anyone to
work on. So we need to help them with new
techniques such as data visualization

(01:56:00):
systems. And more recently, again, these
artificial intelligence machine learning
systems that in principle should be able
to help people detect what's in there and
tell them what it is.
And because of our, our emphasis on
digital infrastructure, we're trying to
position ocean always Canada as a data

(01:56:22):
provider for these systems, because we
know they're coming. And we know that
they're important, they'll
be important for research.
But of course, as you probably
understand, they're also important for
national security. So we want to be at
the for a Canada wants to be at the
forefront of delivering these kind of

(01:56:42):
data for the research community. But at
the same time, having those agreement
agreements in place to protect the
information that's needed for other types
of information that the government needs.
Yeah, this is an extremely important
point. It's it's a very important point.
It's it's the absolute cutting edge right
now for both the science and the

(01:57:03):
technology and it's the idea that machine
learning and artificial intelligence are
actually being trained as part of our
process now to digest this massive meal
of data is very, very important.
My, my small scale view, it would be nice

(01:57:26):
if we could turn on the Canadian system
and the US system. And then the ocean in
between the two would have we would have
resolution of whatever is going on in
there, at least with regard to whales,
maybe with regard to earthquakes.
Not sure how the two would work together.
But if we could get to that point, that

(01:57:46):
would be just very, very exciting closure
to what sadly started with 911 when we
parted company and and haven't worked as
smoothly and well together as the
original vision was in both groups
necessarily and understand we had to go
their separate ways.

(01:58:06):
Right. But with the unity of this, this
idea and the idea that the kids might cut
new ground in terms of managing the data
as well as making it available, making
the products available.
That's really exciting.
Yeah, it is kind of kick this back to the

(01:58:29):
global network of fiber optic cables is
something like 100 1.5
million kilometers on the sea floor.
If all of that could be used with this
kind of resolution and frequency and
presence, the awareness of what goes on
on the planet at the global scale would

(01:58:50):
be phenomenal. And I don't know, you have
to address whether or not that's even
feasible because a lot of people who own
these cables don't want
anybody else messing with them.
They want to own it entirely. Right.
Yes. And it's a good segue. One of my
projects right now is to be part of this
so called smart cable initiative that try

(01:59:13):
to promote the use of of new but also
existing cables for ocean sensing taking
advantage and leveraging these 1.4
million kilometers, as you say, of cable
that that already exists.
And those doubling of that that will
probably exist in the next 10 years.

(01:59:34):
And so, yes, it's a challenge. But but I
think because these techniques that I was
describing the use of the use of fiber
sensing can be also seen as a cable
protection system because you then
understand what's happening in your cable
like, like, for example, there's a new cable.

(01:59:56):
For example, there's there's an anchor
drag that's approaching the cable and
could be cut like any minute now.
Then you kind of pre-warned. It doesn't
mean you can stop anything from
happening, but at least you can trace
back not only where it happens when it
happened and who might be to culprit is
something you can derive

(02:00:16):
from the data you're collecting.
But but more importantly, as John was
saying, even observatories that go off
three, four, 500 kilometers offshore,
like the regional scale nodes in the US
and Neptune Neptune Neptune Observatory
at ocean works, Canada, you can now you
can call that Neptune US now.

(02:00:37):
I'm okay with you would be
dead soon. They can't get me.
Yeah, that's right. Yes. So so they only
covering the coastal zone, as you could
call it, right? They're going on the so
far offshore and the Pacific Ocean is so
large, I always think of that picture
that Kate uses in her presentations about

(02:00:58):
ocean works, Canada and
why we're doing what we do.
It's because you can actually project the
earth and have a view of the earth that
is almost entirely blue with just some
edges of it covered in that's the Pacific
Ocean view. Right, right.
And, and you look at it and you see where
we are. And even the Neptune observatory

(02:01:20):
observatories cover very tiny fractions,
just a few pixel screen. And so, because
those telecommunication cables, the
submarine communication cables go from
continent to continent, they represent a
huge opportunity to
understand a lot more about the ocean.

(02:01:54):
And of course, of interest in the seismic
aspects to, you know, I
was just seeing recently the
the now and the future view of an
understanding of the Earth crust with
smart cables and today. And that's huge.

(02:02:16):
We would we would learn so much more
about how the Earth tectonic system
works. If we had these smart cables with
a number of sensors on them.
You mean when?
I mean, again, that's just a reminder. We
want to position ourselves as a data
delivery in that. Yeah, particularly
because Ben was also part of a group

(02:02:36):
that's advising on a telecommunication
cable across the Arctic Ocean because of
the concerns of our European friends of
from a security perspective of relying on
on telecom cables that are
in areas of, you know, of war.
Let's put it that way. And it's important

(02:02:59):
for the audience to be reminded again
that most almost all of our internet
traffic is on telecommunication cables.
Elon Musk is not saving us saving the
world with the Starlink. It's the telecom
communications. And so by piggybacking on
these with sensors, we then begin to

(02:03:19):
actually sense the whole planet.
And Kate, can you also develop the idea
that we're a little worried about a
magnitude nine earthquake? Oh, yes, of
course. I forgot it. Yeah. So so we've I
wish in Canada and with with provincial
funding installed an earthquake early

(02:03:40):
warning system for the southwestern part
of British Columbia, which is
at risk of a magnitude nine.
The last one was the anniversary was just
a few days ago on January 26, 1700, where
there was a magnitude nine that's
estimated earthquake caused a giant
tsunami that crossed the Pacific Ocean.
And the reason we know about this, this

(02:04:03):
this earthquake was because of the fact
of tax records in Japan.
All of a sudden, on one specific day,
there were no more taxes collected in
most of the coastal villages in Japan.
But then because scientists knew that
that happened, then they went back and
started talking with indigenous
communities here on this coast who had
the stories in their in

(02:04:25):
their their their storytelling.
And so it was clear that the communities
knew it well. And I need to just talk a
little bit about what we were talking
about earlier with our indigenous
communities. So one of the things that
we're doing at Ocean Networks Canada is
developing data products that are unique
for indigenous communities and Western

(02:04:47):
Science, if you want to call it that.
So when we we actually do inundation
modeling of a magnitude nine, we've done
most of the coastline of Vancouver
Island, a lot a large part of the
populated area of the
mainland of British Columbia.
We're now working on Douglas Channel. And
when we finished our last inundation work

(02:05:08):
in the northwestern part of Vancouver
Island, our indigenous team went and
interviewed the leaders and the chiefs of
the First Nations along that coast and
recorded their stories of tsunamis.
And then that team, which is that which
has a wonderful documentarian actually

(02:05:29):
melded together. There are results of an
inundation study, which
are models of inundation.
You know, how high is the water going to
get in your community, explaining the
science behind that and then melded that
beautifully with the stories
from these indigenous leaders.
And then we went back to each of these
communities and we showcased this
documentary in libraries and schools in

(02:05:52):
the villages. And the feedback we got was
tremendous. It was that this is the kind
of product we want. We
don't want a five-stage report.
And so that was our first step into
really having truly meaningful two-eyed
ways of seeing things like tsunamis.
It's a very rich storytelling

(02:06:13):
environment. This event was a battle, a
well-known battle between Thunderbird and
whale. And they fought and fought and
fought. And that's the
way it's accounted for.
But villages that were 100 feet high were
actually wiped out. And some of them talk

(02:06:35):
about waves that actually crossed much of
the Olympic Peninsula. It's just an
astonishing set of stories.
And sadly, not very much of this goes on
in the United States, but I'm thrilled
that it's happening in Canada. I think I

(02:06:58):
was thinking maybe there are nine
provinces in Canada. Why not make the
United States the 10th?
You're welcome, Washington. Yeah, but let
me just put a plug in for the
documentary. It's on YouTube. It's called
"Sunami the 11th Relative", which is the
First Nations called the
"Sunami the 11th Relative".

(02:07:18):
Yeah, we'll definitely link to that in
the show notes for sure. Yeah, listen,
this has been a phenomenal episode
already. And I know we could probably go
on for hours to be able to talk about all
the different things that the ONC has
done and will continue to do and continue
to adapt to new different ways of
understanding the ocean with new

(02:07:40):
different ways of learning about data and
managing data and so forth.
I want to thank all three of you for
joining me today on this on this episode
because I know my audience is very
hopeful in the types of understanding
that we can have in the future and that
we've already had from the data and to
see how all these these networks of
cables have been able to expand to

(02:08:00):
different communities, not only in
Canada, but
Antarctica and other countries.
I think it's it's phenomenal to to be
able to see that gives me a lot of hope
for our future and being able to
understand what's happening and have
early detection systems and and so forth.
So I want to thank all of you for not
only your contributions, but for coming
on the episode today and telling our
audience. Thank you so much.

(02:08:20):
Thank you.
Andrew, if I can give you a gift back.
Yes, please.
You're doing this. It's from it's a note
to you from TS Eliot.
Okay.
It's from four quartets.
We shall not cease from exploration and
the end of all our exploring will be to
arrive where we started and know the
place for the first time.

(02:08:42):
Arrived through the unknown remembered
gate where the last of Earth left to
discover is that which was the beginning
at the source of the longest river, the
voice of a hidden waterfall, not known
because not look for but heard half heard
between two waves of the sea.

(02:09:03):
That's a nice. Thank you
so much. That's awesome.
There's there's a lot more to that, but
it's I recently went to a ceremony at
Annapolis where they devoted an entire
ceremony to naming a new ship for one of
our colleagues, Don Walsh, who dove into

(02:09:25):
the Marianas trough in 1960.
Wow. That was one of
Don's favorite poems.
Well, we appreciate that. Thank you so
much for sharing that with us and sharing
his contribution as well. We appreciate.
Again, thank you to all three of you for
joining us on the episode looking forward
to diving deeper into to the ocean,

(02:09:45):
Canada networks, ocean, Canada and being
able to find out more about the wonderful
projects that are
happening there and the people.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for your work, Andrew.
Bye. Thank you, Kate Benoit and John for
joining me on today's episode of the how
to protect the ocean podcast and to kick
off the first episode of ocean numbers,
Canada series, surfacing secrets explore

(02:10:05):
the ocean, know the planet. Wow.
It has been an eye opener to hear how out
of the box idea of deep ocean cable
observatories in the late 1990s have
evolved into the state of the art
observatories we have today. The spirit
of adventure discovery
innovation still persist at O and C.
And I got to tell you, I'm super excited.
This is something that I've been waiting
for for a long time. I'm so excited to

(02:10:27):
dive in deeper, not just to one episode,
but to do multiple episodes and the next
episode of surfacing secrets, explore the
ocean, know the planet.
We get to meet engineers and a deep sea
robot operator involved in ocean network,
Canada's expeditions to maintain their
deep sea observatories off the coast of
British Columbia. And according to Kate
Moran, it's pretty complicated work.
Here's another clip for the World Ocean

(02:10:48):
Council's ocean titans film.
Ocean Networks Canada really is an ocean
data and technology powerhouse. We
install high tech sensors. We're now
operating over 12,000 of those sensors
that deliver data in real time and it's
available over the Internet to anyone in the world.
And so we deliver this incredible
technology with this team of engineers,

(02:11:11):
scientists, technicians, data people, GIS
people who work together to make that
happen. And for those who don't know,
it's harder to put sensors
in the ocean than in space.

(02:11:34):
So if you want to protect me directly,
you can do so. You can DM me on
Instagram. I'd be more than happy to
answer you at how to protect the ocean.
That's at how to protect the ocean. I
want to thank you so much for joining me
on today's episode of the how to protect
the ocean podcast. I'm your host, Andrew
Lewin. Have a great day. We'll talk to
you next time and happy conservation.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

United States of Kennedy

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Surfacing Secrets: Mavericks and Visionaries

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}United States of Kennedy

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Surfacing Secrets: Mavericks and Visionaries

United States of Kennedy