The 94-metre Investigator was built to specifically meet the needs of Australian marine scientists to undertake geoscience, atmospheric, biological and oceanographic research.
Examples of some of its state-of-the-art features and capabilities include:
- Mapping the sea floor at any depth. Australia has the third largest ocean territory in the world, but only 25 per cent of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has been mapped with multibeam. Much of our deep ocean remains unexplored and unknown.
- Studying what marine life lives between 1500 to 3000 metres below the surface to learn more about where fish live, eat and breed in order to better manage our fisheries.
- Collecting data in a 150 kilometre radius around the ship to improve our weather forecasts. It is one of only a handful of vessels globally that has a weather radar on board.
- Capturing water samples as deep as 7000 metres to help understand where ocean currents travel and to monitor changes in deep ocean temperatures.
