#deep-sea-drum-survey

Dump sites overlap with emerging deep-sea uses — mining, bottom trawling, cable-laying. Disturbing degraded drums that are currently semi-contained could re-suspend and disperse their contents far more widely than passive decay would, turning a localised legacy into an active rel

Barrels were logged only approximately when dumped. Their exact positions on a 14,500 km² abyssal plain, their present state of corrosion, and which have already breached and spilled are largely unknown — you cannot manage or monitor what you cannot find.

Turn survey-derived dump-site boundaries and drum positions into an authoritative georeferenced layer that is mandatory input to seabed licensing, nautical charts, and marine spatial plans — so mining, trawling, and cable projects are routed around the zones by default.

Collect paired water, sediment, and biota samples at graded distances from breached drums, measuring dump-specific radionuclides (cobalt-60, niobium-94, caesium-137, americium-241) to separate dump-derived signal from fallout background — with fixed reference targets enabling rep

Use an AUV to fly lawnmower tracks over the dump zone and build georeferenced photo-mosaics locating individual drums, then send a crewed submersible or ROV for close visual assessment, radiometry, and sampling of selected targets. Two tiers make partial coverage of a 14,500 km²

The environmental-sampling arm of NODSSUM 2026, establishing the first multi-compartment baseline at the site. Alongside drum inspection, the team collected water, sediment and living-organism samples to study the dispe…

Second NODSSUM campaign (close-inspection tier): building on the 2025 AUV wide-area map, ~30 scientists used the crewed submersible Nautile to make 20 dives beyond 4,700 m onto zones of interest identified in the prior…

First NODSSUM campaign (wide-area survey tier): the AUV Ulyx — on its first scientific deployment — flew lawnmower tracks over the abyssal plain at ~6 m above the seabed, acquiring high-resolution imagery assembled into…