Newswise — Seventeen undergraduate students from the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment (CEOE) spent Winter Session at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS). Besides taking classes, the students benefited from hands-on experience using an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), snorkeling, and learning about the British territory's environment and history.
Oh, and they found the wreckage of a WWII B-24 bomber that had crashed in February of 1945.
The program was led by Art Trembanis, associate professor in CEOE, who said that in addition to getting to work at a world-class facility like BIOS, students got a chance to study two things that he is passionate about -- coral reefs and shipwrecks -- while learning about Bermuda's rich cultural and historical heritage as well.
"There's approximately 400 years of human habitation with a connection to the earliest European colonial activities in the New World," said Trembanis who also noted Bermuda's importance in the Civil War, World War I and World War II. "And surrounding the islands are diverse reefs, shipwrecks and a whole variety of other habitats and environments for us to explore from limestone caves to mangrove forests."
Bermuda Bomber
This study abroad project included an added element of planning and execution because Trembanis wanted the students to have use of UD's robotic surveying equipment. That meant the autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) had to be shipped by sea transport from New Jersey to Bermuda. Drones were hand-carried on to a commercial airline flight, then checked as baggage.
All of that was so students could explore areas in Bermuda that they couldn't reach by scuba diving, such as mesophotic coral reefs -- reefs that occur in deeper regions of the sea and are not explored as much as their shallower counterparts.
"We brought some drones and some other sensors and equipment that allowed us to go out and collect data, process that data, plan missions with robot systems and execute those missions," Trembanis said. "It was very much an active experience."
"Dr. Trembanis told us about the bomber plane the first day that we were there and we thought he was joking and we wouldn't really find it," said Mary Kate Dinneen, a junior environmental science major with a chemistry minor. "But when we learned more about the case, we realized that we had a good chance of finding it."
Before setting out with the AUV to look for the plane, the students investigated reports about the plane crash and weather conditions on the night of the crash. They compared newer maps against older maps and were able to guess coordinates to plug into the AUV for the search.
"It took the AUV three hours to go back and forth and cover all that grid that we plotted out, so we snorkeled while that was happening," said Amanda Obosnenko, a senior majoring in environmental science and minoring in wildlife conservation. "We didn't find anything snorkeling, but we found it later with the AUV."
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