page_title: Regional Scale Nodes
section_title: Instruments
hierarchical_section_title: Regional Scale Nodes / Instruments
context_page_description: The National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatories Initiative Regional Scale Nodes component is an electro-optically cabled underwater observatory that directly connects to the global Internet. It is the largest cable-linked seabed observatory in the world, and also the first of its kind in the United States.
  Located on the southern part of the Juan de Fuca plate, off the coast of Washington and Oregon, it is the first ocean observatory to span a tectonic plate.
  RSN utilizes several high-power, high-bandwidth sub-sea terminals called primary nodes which are linked together by fiber-optic cable and provide support to oceanographic sensors at key locations.
  Upon completion of the network in 2014, RSN will cover a distance of over 900 kilometers at depths of up to 3000 meters. Implementation of the OOI Regional Scale Nodes is led by the University of Washington's School of Oceanography, the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, and L-3 MariPro.
  Live RSN data from >100 seafloor and water column instruments will be made available live on the Internet. This will allow both scientists and the general public to study long-term changes in ocean systems over the next 25 years.
context_section_description: In order to fully understand complex ocean systems, a wide variety of sensor arrays, capable of surviving for long periods of time in harsh conditions, are necessary.  A suite of sensors (over 100) were selected and strategically placed throughout RSN.  They are located at Axial Seamount, Hydrate Ridge, and also on the water-column moorings.
  Instruments connected to the RSN include:  
  Conductivity Temperature Depth (located on profilers)
  Dissolved Oxygen,
  3-D Single Point Current Meter
  Temperature
  Fluorometers
  CDOM,
  Chlorophyll-a,
  Optical Backscatter
  The instruments are the final spot of each regional network branch.
caption: ROPOS prepares to deploy a shallow profiler Credit:  M. Elend, University of Washington
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