EXCLUSIVE DIVES OF DEEP-SEA MANNED VEHICLES OF THE INSTITUTE OF OCEANOLOGY OF THE RUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: FROM THE HOT BRINES OF THE RED SEA TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE REAL NORTH POLE

Abstract

The article provides brief results of unique dives of “Pisces XI” deep manned submersibles (DMS) into hot brines at the bottom of the Red Sea and “MIR-1” and “MIR-2” – under ice at the Geographical North Pole. Among the several thousand dives of DMS IO RAS, these studies of the depths of the seas and oceans occupy a special place, since this is a real exclusive that no one else in the world has done. I believe that in the 80th anniversary of the IO RAS it is necessary to recall these unique achievements of our submariners, who were highly appreciated by scientists and specialists from all over the world. Both operations required the participants courage and courage, determination and confidence in the successful completion of the plan, because they were waiting for penetration into the unknown with elements of unexpected moments. The expedition to the Red Sea with the dives of the “Pisces XI” DMS was conceived by the director of the Institute of Oceanology Andrei Sergeevich Monin. There were two reasons that prompted him to make such a decision. Firstly, the “Pisces VII” and “Pisces XI”, commissioned as the DMS in 1977, were used in a number of expeditions in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean very timidly and limited, since expedition leaders, as a rule, tried not to focus scientific research on DMS dives for safety reasons. Therefore, in each expedition, only a few dives (4–5) were made to shallow depths. A. S. Monin wanted to show that DMSs are truly working tools for scientific research. The second moment that haunted Monin was the FAMOUS expedition conducted by the Americans and French in 1973 in the Azores using the “Alvin” DMS (USA) and “Cyana” (France) and the “Archimede” bathyscaphe (France). Andrei Sergeevich wanted our expedition to “thunder” all over the world too. Depressions with hot brines were a suitable object, since no one plunged into them.