Research ship Revelle ending six-year journey

The R/V Revelle is owned by the Navy and leased by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography SIO

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography's famed research ship Roger Revelle will return to San Diego in mid-November for the first time in six years, ending a journey that took the vessel to some of the most remote areas of the world.

The 277-foot Revelle is scheduled to arrive on Nov. 16 and will remain in the San Diego area for an extended period of inspections and maintenance.

Revelle's sister ship, the Melville, went on a 2.5-year trip. But a journey of six years is almost unheard of. The vessel didn't return to San Diego during that period because there is heavy demand among scientists to use Revelle, a sturdy and highly equipped open-ocean research platform.

The Revelle, which entered service in 1996, traveled to such places as Australia, Taiwan Fiji, New Zealand, and Tonga during its high seas journey. Researchers have been doing everything from studying aspects of climate change to exploring the behavior of seafloor earthquake faults and the movement of marine life at various depths.

On Thursday night, the Revelle was operating in the South Pacific, at a point roughly equal distance between Peru and Papua New Guinea.

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