Australia's Marine National Facility-operated research vessel 'Southern Surveyor' is to be sold by open tender on the international market in the lead up to the arrival of its replacement, the 'Investigator'.
A former North Sea trawler, Australia's marine science community has been using the 42-year-old 'Southern Surveyor' since 2002, conducting research from the Southern Ocean to the waters off the coast of East Timor.
On board the vessel, scientists from a diverse range of universities, institutions and government organisations have discovered massive submarine volcanoes between Fiji and Samoa, developed and recovered buoys as part of Australia's tsunami warning system, deployed integrated marine observing system moorings, observed changes to ocean currents that influence rainfall and fisheries, mapped the seafloor and discovered the final resting places of historically significant shipwrecks.
