Pavilion Lake Research Project:

The Pavilion Lake Research Project (PLRP) had another successful field season in 2010! Nuytco is pleased to be involved with this ground-breaking project, and looking forward to the 2011 field season.

Based in a remote lake the Interior of British Columbia, Canada, the PLRP centres around biological/geologial formations called 'microbialites'. These strange structures look for all the world like tropical coral reefs! Check out the Youtube video below to see the scientists and subs in action at Pavilion Lake (sub footage starts at 3:15).

Video: ©Dale Andersen.

During the 2008-2010 field seasons, NASA and CSA astronauts and scientists from several other institutions (including McMaster University and UBC) piloted the ‘DeepWorker 2000' subs, surveying and acquiring high def underwater video of these colonies as part of the Mars Project. (Huh, Mars??)

Yep. The PLRP has presented an opportunity to advance the long-term objective of human exploration of the Moon and Mars by combining research on life in extreme environments with high fidelity training in an underwater, remote field setting. The information gained from this analogue project will help to improve the knowledge base, tools and techniques of future human missions to the Moon, Mars and beyond.

To the project web page (external link) and see the DeepWorkers in action, click here.