

April 21, 2015 - National Geographic's remote imaging team uses drop-cam technology to explore deep ocean mysteries. In this video, mechanical engineer Alan Turchik explains how the drop cam works and reveals footage of underwater life never before seen in the Chagos Archipelago in the Indian Ocean. The camera captured images of a gulper shark, not previously known to occupy these waters. The January 2015 expedition was organized by the Bertarelli Foundation and led by Zoological Society of London researcher Tom Letessier. The National Geographic Society/Waitt Grants Program also supported the expedition.

Tom Letessier:



Do you have any idea what kind of shark it might be?



Alan Turchik:



It’s a gulper shark.



Tom Letessier:



Ah, right!



Alan Turchik:



Yeah, you can see, there’s the gulper.



Group of Scientists:



Ah, there he is, yeah, definitely.



You can see the tail.



Alan Turchik:



I’m Alan Turchik and I’m a mechanical engineer with National Geographic’s Remote Imaging Group. My role on this trip is to utilize what are called the Deep Ocean Drop Cams. It’s basically a camera inside a sphere that sinks down to the bottom of the ocean and films there so we can see what kind of creatures live.



A really special part of this Chagos expedition is all the collaboration that’s going on between the scientists. We have a bunch of different groups of scientists that are collecting all types of different data. One group is collecting information about how organisms are traveling up and down in the water column. And my data, which composes of what’s on the bottom, can hopefully be linked with that, and we can complete an entire system that extends from the bottom all the way up to the surface.



The ocean’s a really fascinating place. There’s just so much going on everywhere all the way from the depths up to the surface. There’s always exciting things happening in the ocean.



The deep ocean actually hasn’t been explored at all here, so my cameras are able to give us a view of the life that exists down here, which is something that no one’s ever seen before. So, this is really exciting for me because it’s a whole new frontier.



Currently, I’m getting the camera ready here. I’m actually putting the bait on the camera. We use the bait with the camera to attract fish so they’ll come into frame. Another thing we have to get ready is the lights on the camera. So, you can see, there’s LED lights that are actually inside the pressure housing and they’re going to shine out and reflect off these reflectors and illuminate the scene.



This is actually the release mechanism. So, like I was saying before, we take an anchor, like this guy. It’s pretty heavy, it’s about forty pounds. And we’ll attach it to the shackle on the bottom. And right here, this is called a burn wire, and, it’s pretty cool. What we do is we put current through the burn wire and in the ocean it will just corrode and release the weight.



Crew:



Okay, let go?



Alan Turchik:



Yep, let that one go. Okay, here it goes.



One of the most important things is to actually recover the Drop Cam. We start by looking for the radio signal, so I use that radio receiver, and I kind of sweep the horizon and I’m listening for the signal, and once I hear, I’ll hear this, ‘beep, beep, beep’ and then I can figure out exactly what direction it is. And I can tell the captain, ‘hey, look let’s go over here.’ And we’ll drive over there, and then we have to sit there with binoculars and scan for this orange flag, because it’s just a tiny orange flag in this huge expanse of blue ocean.



Ah, you can hear it! It’s out there.



We just recovered both cameras, which is great—successful day. So, now the next step is I have to charge the batteries and download the footage and I’ll take a look and see. Hopefully there will be something really cool.



Tom Letessier:



That’s a beautiful shot, that one. That’s really nice.



Alan Turchik:



It was all below 1000 meters actually. I think that’s a lantern shark, some kind of lantern shark.



Tom Letessier:



These all attracted to the bait, yeah?



Alan Turchik:



I think so, yeah. The bait or the light, maybe.



Everything we find is a new discovery.



This is really exciting for me because it’s a new frontier



You really don’t know what you’re going to find, sometime I make predictions, but you really don’t know until you put a camera down there.



