Hydrothermal fountains imaged by high resolution side-scan sonar equipped on a cruising AUV, URASHIMA

Mapping of an area and intensities of activity at a particular hydrothermal field has required huge effort so far, typically several tens of dives of manned submersibles and/or ROVs to obtain detailed locality map with needed resolutions. Thus, appropriate remote sensing techniques have been desired since the discovery of seafloor hydrothermal field. A series of successful trials has been performed by ABE of WHOI equipped with a Eh-sensor (Yoerger et al., Oceanography, 2007). A 100kHz side-scan sonar (SSS) equipped on a cruising AUV, URASHIMA, caught detailed structural image of hydrothermal fountains rooting active chimneys during YK07-07 Cruise off Okinawa Isl. (May 6-18, 2007). The URASHIMA AUV is a 10-m-length cylindrical-shaped one that originally optimized to long distance cruise. In the expedition, she cruised near the sea floor with 50-100 m altitude, at the area of 1000-1500 m in WD. She has currently basic oceanographic/CTD sensors, a 400kHz echo-sounder and sonars of 100400 kHz side-scan sonar and up to 6 kHz sub-bottom profiler. In this operation, pH and ORP sensors (CRIEPI) were also attached in front of AUV. On the pre-processing image of SSS, numbers of filament-shape echoes were recorded within water column zone. The reason why they should be the echo from hydrothermal plumes are as folows; 1) the echoes in the water column were limitedly recorded above the active hydrothermal field; 2) CTD and pH sensors show temperature and pH anomaly corresponding to the record of echoes; 3) some of the root of the filament-shape echoes correspond to the hydrothermal mound recognized in the detailed bathymetry obtained with SeaBat7125 MNBES. This-like technique should revolute the mapping work prior to the sampling at the particular hydrothermal site.