Figure: Location map of the EMSO-Ligure-Nice cabled observatory with its two junction boxes offshore Nice Airport. Top right inset shows diver operation on the junction box in the Eastern station (O. Dugornay, 2017).

EMSO Ligure-Nice - Installation of instruments on marine junction box

Hosting Institutions:

Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), France

Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France

Description:

The EMSO-Ligure-Nice is a subsea cabled observatory located on the continental shelf about 0.8 km offshore Nice Airport, SE France (https://www.emso-fr.org/EMSO-Ligure-Nice). This infrastructure aims at monitoring offshore earthquakes, site amplification and the factors underlying the development of submarine landslides. It provides real-time access to broadband seismometer data along with seabed pore pressure and temperature data recorded by two piezometers. These instruments are connected to two different junction boxes in seafloor stations located 0.8 km apart at 20 m below sea-level (Figure).

Services offered:

Connection of an underwater instrument to the EMSO coastal cabled observatory offshore Nice Airport, ensuring its power supply (15 or 48 VDC up to 75W) and the real-time access to data through serial or Ethernet communication protocols.

Modality of access:

The planned unit access to the facility is “1 week” which scales with the time required for bench testing in IFREMER Brest (France) before marine deployment. Instrument deployment, connection and recovery should ideally be carried out when IFREMER perform routine maintenance on the EMSO-Ligure-Nice observatory. Physical access can thus be granted for up to a year.

Support:

Bench testing of the instrument and user training to remotely access data will be undertaken at the IFREMER Campus in Brest. Sea operations to deploy and recover the instrument will be organized by IFREMER. The connection/disconnection of the user’s instrument to an underwater junction box will be performed by divers in Nice with the user also present.

Additional information:

The timing of the deployment of the instrument will depend on technical requirements (e.g. size, weight, etc) and what size boat is required to manipulate it. 

Contact person:

Sebastien Garziglia (Sebastien.garzigliaifremer.fr)