Coiled deep within the hold of a 140-metre ship is more than 900 kilometres of fibre-optic cable that's about to become the backbone of the first real-time, cabled ocean observatory.

Later this week, the Isle de Sein will begin to lay and sometimes bury the cable in a loop stretching from Port Alberni on Vancouver Island out hundreds of kilometres and to depths up to 2,800 metres along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and back.

Attached to that cable will be hundreds of sampling instruments that scientists in Canada and around the world will be able to tap into and control from shore, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, by computer.

'We will understand the chemistry, the physics, the biology and the geology of the oceans better than ever before'—University of Victoria president David Turpin

"If you're a scientist in St. John's, Nfld., or Timbuktu, if you've got internet, you can alter the pan and tilt on a camera, you can set off lights if something moves, or if there's a volcanic eruption," said Neptune project manager Chris Barnes from the University of Victoria.

For Barnes, a geologist, and thousands of scientists across many disciplines, Neptune represents a transformation from traditional research methods, which generally meant spending a few days at sea on ships dropping instruments to the bottom. Now that can be accomplished for days, weeks, even years on end, from the comfort of a computer terminal.

"We are on the verge of wiring our oceans," said Martin Taylor, who leaves his post as vice-president of research at UVic soon to take on the responsibilities of president of the not-for-profit company that will run the Neptune project in Canada.

"They are so important to our understanding of our planet and the understanding of the consequences of changes in our planet for our everyday lives."

Neptune stands for North-East Pacific Time-series Undersea Networked Experiments. Eventually the B.C. cable loop, which can support up to 700 sensors, will be joined to another loop in U.S waters, for a total of 3,000 kilometres of cabling covering most of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, the smallest of the major plates that make up the surface of the planet.

Total cost will be $112 million, with the Canada Foundation for Innovation providing nearly $40 million and the B.C. Knowledge Development Fund another $38.5 million for the Canadian portion.

12 universities on board

The project has five major research themes. It will provide a platform for engineering and computer research as well as insight into earthquake dynamics, ocean climate change, deep sea ecosystems and the world of fluids, microbes and hydrates in the seabed.

"These insights will help directly, and indirectly, in our search for climate change solutions by way of prevention, adaptation and mitigation," said David Turpin, president of the University of Victoria, which is the lead school in a consortium of 12 Canadian universities involved in the project.

"The scientific benefits of this project are enormous," he said. "We will understand the chemistry, the physics, the biology and the geology of the oceans better than ever before."

It will likely even provide some badly needed data on tsunamis.

Up and running in 2008

"We'll have a 10-kilometre triangular array of very sensitive bottom pressure sensors which will probably be the most sophisticated tsunami research system in the world," said Barnes.

The Canadian phase of Neptune is expected to be operational next year, the U.S. stage in 2013. Similar cabled sea bottom observatories are being planned in Japan, Taiwan and Europe.

It took about a week to load the cable in Europe onto the Isle de Sein, which is owned by Alcatel-Lucent of France, the company that also designed and manufactured the equipment and technology for the project under a $50-million subcontract.

In order to keep the cable from being damaged closer to shore where commercial fishing takes place, about 250 kilometres of cable will be buried to a depth of up to two metres, using a 28-tonne plow.