THE REVELATION OF THE MAGIC DOWN THERE

The Black Sea has always fascinated me but I never really found the time to look up why it has that name. Now I know - unlike other oceans of the world, it has an oxygen content of zero percent at the sea bed level.

Consequently, there are no sea worms to devour organic matter. This fact may have come to light only recently for me, but, until now, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had been prevented by the old Cold War political schemings from using that knowledge in scanning the undersea there for both archaeological and scientific purposes.

All that has changed now with the introduction of the cutting edge NOAA vessel, Okeanos Explorer:

[Undersea explorer Robert Ballard leans back and smiles at the screens arrayed above his desk. One displays a view of a remote operating vessel, another scans along a seafloor never before viewed by humans.

It's the Black Sea, not far from Ukraine, a region long closed to outsiders and now yielding a treasure trove of Byzantine vessels that met their ends 1,000 or more years ago.

For Ballard the archaeologist, those vessels and their contents are a delight.

For Ballard the explorer, the modern technology he's testing for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is pretty exciting, too.

Thanks to the massive speed of modern communications, talking to him from a desk in Silver Spring, Md., while he is aboard the research vessel Alliance in the Black Sea is almost as simple as talking to him in person.....

The plan is to have dozens or hundreds of scientists participate without ever having to leave their homes and universities.

The ship will be in high-speed communications with a center at the University of Rhode Island, and from there via Internet2 to universities and science centers across the country, calling on whatever expertise is needed.....

The center in Rhode Island will operate like the NASA space center in Houston, which is constantly in contact with the astronauts in outer space, just as Rhode Island will be with the aquanauts in inner space.

Above Ballard's head, the underwater camera continues to move across the seafloor, passing mainly stones and sand and, suddenly, a series of straight lines and right angles.

Those most likely mark a wreck, the remains of some ancient vessel the explorers will turn and scan again.

Unlike other oceans, the deepest parts of the Black Sea contain no dissolved oxygen, so there are no sea worms to devour the wood of ancient vessels.

Off the coast of Turkey, Ballard said he has found a sunken Byzantine vessel so complete that even the 1,000-year-old masts still rise upward. Wreck sites are littered with containers once used for wine, oil, honey and other trade goods.....

"Scientifically, some of the remote expeditions would have benefited by having more experts on board and this is a way to get more experts," said Steve Gittings, scientific coordinator for NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program.

For example, he said, when researchers discovered hot-water vents deep in the ocean they had to mount additional trips to bring in experts to study the surprising worms and other life that existed in total darkness around the vents.

Now, with high speed communications, researchers would be called in to study high-definition images in real time.

Also, Gittings said, the system will be beneficial for education programs.

In the past, educational efforts were mounted after scientists returned, perhaps months after they completed a voyage. With the new system, students and teachers will be able to watch research as it happens.]