Scientists estimate that 95% of the earth's species may live deep within the ocean-a part of the world we've rarely been able to see. Until now, that is.

Twice as deep as the Grand Canyon and only one-third as long, the Monterey Submarine Canyon, located off the northern California coast, is slowly revealing its remarkable secrets to Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute scientists. They have been exploring the region using an unmanned submersible, aptly named the Ventana, which is Spanish for window.

And while researchers investigate this ocean canyon located some 100 miles south of San Francisco, the MBARI has embarked on another kind of adventure: bringing its science to aquarium viewers as well as off-site audiences in real time using asynchronous transfer mode technology.

Pacific Bell's FasTrak ATM cell relay service was used because of its innate ability to handle the variety of media used in this application. In addition, ATM is preferable to private line solutions if a network is likely to expand to several locations over a wide area.

Partially funded by a grant from California Research and Education Network, a trust established by Pacific Bell to spur development and use of communications applications for high-speed network services, the MBARI transmits live video images to the aquarium as well as the San Jose-based Technology Museum of Innovation. In effect, it allows the public to look over the shoulders of scientists while they are doing their research.

How it works Although it consists of a complicated series of fiber optic and analog video links, the MBARI ATM service is virtually invisible to aquarium visitors (Figure 1). A Sony DXC 3000 three-chip color camera aboard the Ventana gathers footage from Monterey Bay. A fiber optic cable links the remote-operated vehicle both physically and via communications command to the research vessel Point Lobos on the surface. The signal travels by fiber optics to the ship and is then retransmitted along an analog video channel from a shipboard microwave dish. The microwave signal travels to a relay station, to a dish at MBARI's offices at Moss Landing and then to a dish at the aquarium.

At the aquarium, the analog video signal is digitized and compressed using an Axil workstation with a Parallax video card. Using the workstation's four Fore Systems ATM interface cards, the compressed signal is shipped via ATM to the Technology Museum of Innovation in San Jose, where a Sun Microsystems workstation containing its own Parallax video card converts the video signal back to an NTSC signal and transports the image to the museum's display monitor. Audio and video are synchronized using Paradise Software's video management package.

Live video that arrives via microwave transmission is projected directly onto a screen for aquarium visitors. In addition, during the four times a week that scientists transmit images from the Ventana, aquarium staff interpreters-or "live linkers" as they call themselves-narrate the video and answer visitors' questions. Two monitors located at the interpreter's podium facilitate the dialogue. One monitor allows the interpreter to see audiences at remote locations such as at the Tech Museum, where, via an Internet connection, visitors are able to ask the interpreter a question.

Project planners wanted to find a way to hear visitors at the remote site without picking up all the noise from an open microphone. They solved the problem using a public domain program referred to as a "sticky program," modeled after the yellow sticky notes used at the office. Visitors at the remote site send a "sticky" signal across the Internet to indicate that they have a question. The interpreter can then call on the person by pushing a button, which activates a headset at the podium.

Using a touch-screen monitor also at the podium, interpreters can call up a variety of maps, diagrams and archived video images to use during their narration. Images are stored on laser disc, and the computer provides quick access to the footage. Using the technology and ship-to-shore radio, the aquarium can create the sensation of swooping through the canyon to the site of the day's research activities, talk with the research scientists as they work, and see footage of the animals and environments being studied that day.

At the remote site, viewers see the live sea images as well as a smaller picture-within-a-picture of the aquarium-based interpreter. Currently, remote site visitors use a microphone located next to the monitor to ask questions, which are received by the interpreter through the podium's headset and restated to the audience, giving the interpreter more control over the presentation. But project planners are in the process of devising a means to control the audio over a loudspeaker system to overcome this inconvenience.

Looking over the scientist's shoulder Founded in 1987 by David Packard, co-founder of the Hewlett-Packard Co., the MBARI began doing research in 1988 with a robot adapted from an oil industry model used for offshore platforms and pipelines. Over the years, scientists have been able to explore undersea landslides caused by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, examine wreckage of the Navy dirigible USS Macon 1500 feet below the surface, and discover bizarre, previously unknown creatures that live in a world of constant cold and dark.

In 1989, LiveLink, which sent live video and audio to the MBARI auditorium over a microwave link, was launched to help commemorate the aquarium's fifth anniversary. Originally, the program was limited to showcasing live video only at the aquarium site.

The offering was so popular that people would pack a lunch and stay all day watching the live images of bioluminescent fish, 120-foot-long jellies and delicate colonies of sea life that, instead of relying on the sun for energy, depend on hydrogen sulfide from cold seeps within the canyon's walls. One of MBARI's most notable accomplishments was capturing 45 minutes of a giant squid in its own habitat on video-a scientific first.

The warm public reception got aquarium staffers to wondering if they could share these images with schools, researchers, and audiences at other sites. With the help of the CalREN trust fund and the Tech Museum, the BayLink project, which extended LiveLink beyond the auditorium, was born.

Coast-to-coast images In 1995, MBARI was selected by the White House to demonstrate its leading-edge application of ATM technology to the Department of Commerce in Washington.

Pacific Bell, AT&T, Sprint, Ameritech and Bell Atlantic were brought together to assemble the first complete coast-to-coast terrestrial ATM link. During the demonstration, 450 participants looked on as University of California-Santa Cruz scientists and MBARI researchers studied the transport and composition of "marine snow"-organic material generated in surface waters that sinks to the deep sea.

Encouraged by the project's success, the group began to investigate a solution for transmitting real-time images that would be affordable to high schools and other educational institutions. The focus now is on expanding to more sites, especially outside the San Francisco Bay area. The challenge there is how to deal with regulations governing long-distance communications. For example, to transmit to nearby San Jose, the group has to go through a long-distance carrier down to Los Angeles, then back up to San Jose, even though it would be simpler to use a single carrier.

The success of the BayLink program indicates a shift from computer-centered technology to network-centered technology. The experience also has shifted from a person interacting with a machine to a person interacting with another person, regardless of time and space.

Ultimately, this high-speed technology will change the way researchers work and resource managers create new policies. Policy-makers usually need to make a decision immediately, but researchers may need years to investigate a particular subject. High-speed communication can help both parties work together more effectively to think through policies.

The public wins in other ways as well. Because people are able to look over a scientist's shoulder using this technology, they don't just learn facts and figures about science-they participate in the science itself.

Toward this end, MBARI will launch a second remote-operated vehicle called the Tiburon this spring. The Tiburon will be capable of diving to 13,000 feet-7000 feet deeper than the Ventana is able to descend. Scientists and other participants will be able to see animals that live even deeper in the canyon, further widening their window into the unknown.

Hemant Vaidya is Vice President of FasTrak Data and Video Services for Pacific Bell, San Francisco.