The lander: Recent developments in free vehicle platform design

The Bottom Lander is a free vehicle device capable of performing three benthic chamber experiments on the sea floor at water depths up to 6 km. During each experiment, samples of the water trapped within each chamber are recovered at preprogrammed time intervals and stored for shipboard analysis. In addition, the sediments underlying each chamber are recovered by an hydraulically driven box coring mechanism at the end of the experiment before the vehicle ascends to the sea surface. The purpose of this paper is to describe the Bottom Lander emphasizing the recent developments of the mechanical components required to accomplish the sea floor experiments.