April 2006, Issue #48
Feature Story: Ocean Engineering
What do the following scenarios have in common?
One hundred miles off the Texas coast, in the Gulf of Mexico, an oil drilling platform—an enormous steel structure larger than many skyscrapers—strains against a web of steel and composite cables anchored to the sea-floor 3,000 feet below. Rotating drill pipes extend several thousand more feet into the ocean bottom where deposits of oil and gas lay.
Two hundred miles off the coast of Washington state, a research ship hovers on the sea's surface, manipulated by navigational satellites hundreds of miles above. A thin cable of fiber-optic strands and electrical conductors connects the ship to a remotely-piloted robotic vehicle on the seafloor 7,000 feet below as it shoots live, high-definition video of volcanic smoker vents and strange life-forms. The video is linked, real time, to a communications satellite 22,500 miles above and, from there, into classrooms coast to coast.
A U.S. Navy submarine glides silently hundreds of feet beneath the roiling waves of the Arabian Sea. Passive sonar listens to the propellers of vessels on the surface, analyzing the pattern of shipping lane traffic, searching for and tracking rogue vessels that may be carrying illicit weapons or terrorists.
The common thread through all these scenarios is that none of them would be possible without the efforts and inventions of marine technologists and, typically, ocean engineers. If you're interested in engineering as a career and also have an interest in the 70 percent of our planet covered in water, you can combine these passions in this rewarding and interesting profession. Ocean engineers can be:
Ocean engineers help oceanographers, marine biologists, professionals in the oil-and-gas industry, archaeologists, the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard personnel, and other ocean specialists by designing and creating the instruments and equipment they use. Whether it's the cables that anchor an oil-drilling platform to the ocean floor, sophisticated underwater imaging equipment that photographs the drilling process, or the platform itself, ocean engineers are involved in every aspect of marine instrumentation, devices, and processes. Here are just a few examples:
- Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs)—unoccupied, highly maneuverable underwater robots operated by a person aboard a surface vessel that are used, for example, to recover treasures from a shipwreck, repair oil platforms, and conduct research on marine life
- A tall, portable light system for illuminating the deep ocean that can be moved around the seafloor by an ROV
- Fluorescence-imaging cameras for photographing fluorescent coral and fluorescent sea creatures in the blackest depths of the ocean
- Buoys with sensing devices for determining a wave's size by gauging the weight of the water column passing over it (useful in detecting tsunamis)
- Technology that allows scientists to measure the depth of a column of water (called bathymetry) from the air in order to map the ocean floor
- Instrumentation that communicates with satellites to determine the amount of melting of polar ice
- Materials for submersibles that can withstand extreme pressure
The variety of professional options is illustrated in the membership of the Marine Technology Society, a professional organization that supports marine engineers and technologists. The society has over two dozen technical interest groups.
An exciting book you may want to read is Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder. It relates the story of how an ocean engineer, Tommy Thompson, discovered one of the richest treasures ever found on a sunken ship. The ship, the Central America, went down in a hurricane in 1857, sinking thousands of feet into deep ocean hundreds of miles off the coast of the Carolinas. No one had every worked so deep at that time to recover gold and archeological artifacts from a shipwreck. Thompson's expedition recovered gold coins, bars and nuggets; plus steamer trunks filled with period clothes, newspapers, books, journals and even an intact cigar sealed under water for 130 years. This fascinating book will show you how ocean engineering was used to solve problems that seemed insurmountable.
With a career in marine technology or engineering, you may be involved with policy making, inventions, helping improve people's lives, and helping save the oceans. You may travel to all seven continents and have the opportunity to meet people and learn about cultures all over the world. You may find yourself working in the lab, at sea, or even on Capitol Hill.
You can find out more about careers in ocean engineering by visiting the websites of these organizations:
Thanks to the Marine Technology Society for
providing this month's feature story.
