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In November 2021, the National Facility for Seismic Imaging (NFSI) out of Dalhousie University deployed an array of 12 Aquarius ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) over the Laurentian Fan near the Grand Banks. The sensors were deployed with the goal of recording important seismic data until the summer of 2022. The OBSs were equipped with our Apollo-Mono Iridium GPS beacons and XMB-11K VHF beacons.
A few weeks later, we received alarm messages from our Apollo-monos that there was an accidental release and 2 OBS units were now floating on the surface. Due to the distance offshore and adverse weather conditions typically seen in the North Atlantic in late fall and winter, NFSI determined it wasn't feasible to send a ship to recover the instruments at the time. A third OBS accidentally surfaced approximately 3 weeks later, just before Christmas.
The OBSs were tracked across the Atlantic Ocean using the Apollo-Monos and after 5 months, one of the units started drifting towards the Azores Islands. NSFI contacted a colleague in the Azores who recruited a local fisherman to successfully retrieve the nearby OBS system!
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