AQUALOG MOORED AUTOMATIC MEASURING SYSTEM
FOR VERTICAL PROFILING OF THE MARINE MEDIUM 

The system was developed at the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The system is designed for multidisciplinary oceanological studies and environmental monitoring on the sea shelves and continental slopes. An autonomous carrier (marine elevator) for different oceanic measuring equipment was developed for the first time in the practice of Russian oceanography. It is a carrier, for example, for an acoustic Doppler current meter, a CTD-profiler, a sensor of dissolved oxygen, a fluorometer, a turbidity meter, etc.

  The Aqualog system has an energy resource sufficient for profiling the water column in the programming regim for up to several months. The total length of the vertical displacement of the system at a nominal capacity of the power supply reaches 200 km. The main results of the field tests of the Akvalog and preliminary scientific results of its application are presented on the basis of the results of the Black Sea expeditions (2006-2008).

This study was supported by the Federal Targeted Scientific Technical Research Program RP-22.1/001 “Development of the Technology of Multilevel Region­ally-Adjusted Ecological and Geodynamic Monitoring of the Seas of the Russian Federation Primarily in the Regions of the Shelf and Continental Slope,” the Federal Targeted Research Program “World Ocean” (contract no. 43.634.11.007), Program 17 of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Russian Founda­tion for Basic Research (projects nos. 05-05-64927, 06-05-08092-ofi, and 06-05-02105-e_k).