The US Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Healy and its embarked science teams have completed the first two phases of the vessel’s 2024 Arctic Fall deployment and are continuing operations offshore of western and northern Alaska.
Healy's crew and the science teams conducted multiple scientific and seafloor mapping missions, which resulted in the discovery of a subsea volcano-like feature during the first phase.
The first two phases featured a collaboration between the coast guard, the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the University of New Hampshire.
The interagency science mission to the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas north of Alaska combined oceanographic buoy deployments with a coordinated mapping effort to survey uncharted waters and acquire depth data along a portion of the Alaskan Arctic Coast Port Access Route Study (AACPARS) corridor, a coast guard-proposed preferred vessel route from Utqiaġvik, Alaska, to the demarcation point of the border between the US and Canada.
During the mission's first phase, the science party discovered a volcano-like feature rising 500 metres from the seabed, approximately 1,600 metres below the surface at its shallowest depth. Upon further review of water column data collected at the site, the science team detected a potential gas plume rising from just above the feature to near the water's surface. The feature poses no risk to navigation as it is well below navigable draught of the largest modern vessels.
"Although data analysis is ongoing, these findings are exciting and offer insight into what may exist beneath the ocean's surface, much of which is unknown in this region," said Captain Meghan McGovern, commanding officer of NOAA Ship Fairweather and currently embarked with the Healy mapping team. "The coordination and partnerships during this mission fill critical gaps in the region for all waterway users and provide a foundation for safe navigation in the Arctic."
McGovern and an NOAA team from Fairweather, an Alaska-based hydrographic survey vessel, joined the science party aboard Healy to support mapping coastal waters using Healy's multibeam echo sounders for obtaining bathymetric data to provide highly accurate depths and detailed images of the sea floor and objects along the AACPARS corridor.