Nation's First Deep-Sea Research Submersible Keeps Going and
Going... FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Relations Office June 2,
1999 The nation’s first human-occupied deep-sea research
submersible, the three-person Alvin, turns 35 on June 5, but the
tiny sub keeps on going and going. Making between 175 and 200
dives each year to depths up to 4,500 meters (14,764 feet), the
sub set yet another record when it passed Dive #3,400 in late
May. Alvin and its support vessel, the 274-foot Research Vessel
Atlantis, are at work in the eastern Pacific and will spend the
summer diving to the ocean floor off the coast of Washington and
Oregon. The ship and sub, part of the U.S. National Deep
Submergence Facility operated by WHOI, left their home port at
Woods Hole, MA, June 2, 1997 and are not scheduled to return to
Woods Hole until October 2000. (For further information about
the ship and sub visit the WHOI web site at:
http://www.marine.whoi.edu/ships/alvin/alvin.htm) Still and
video images available from the WHOI News Offic