Deep-sea worms appear live on TV

14 December 1991

Pictures of these giant tube worms were beamed ‘live’ from 2650 metres
under the Pacific Ocean off Mexico to a research laboratory in France. The
transmission (in colour) from a remote controlled submarine to a TV screen
at the French institute for ocean research at Brest, in Brittany, took just
minutes. The submarine sent the pictures to an oceanographic research ship
as sound waves, and the images were then transmitted via satellite to a
telecommunications centre in France and from there by telephone to Brest.

The pictures have 480 lines of 480 pixels and 256 gradations for each
of the primary colours. Because of the cost, the ‘instantaneous’ transmission
was made only as an experiment. For most of the voyage, the submarine’s
pictures, taken every two minutes, are stored and will be returned to France
by ship.

Marine biologists from Brest have joined scientists from the University
of California at Los Angeles to study colonies of giant creatures that live
around hydrothermal vents, hot spots in the ocean floor. The pictures enable
them to monitor the way the animals react to temperature, turbidity and