The University of Hawaii's ALOHA Cabled Observatory is located 100 km north of the island of Oahu, Hawaii (22 45'N, 158W) in the North Pacific Ocean. It provides real-time oceanographic observations from a depth of about 4,800 m via a submarine fiber optic cable that comes ashore at Makaha on Oahu. In addition to ocean sounds, continuous observations of temperature, salinity, and ocean currents are obtained and shared with the oceanographic community and the general public.
Learn more about the ACO configuration
Learn about working with the ACO.
Preparing the TAAM for deployment
See Data and Plots
Whales migrating to Alaska for the summer
Humpback whales are now leaving their winter home near Hawaii and heading back north. Rather than "singing", they make simple repeated calls to navigate and let others know where they are, The plot shows sound power by color, with the reddest colors being the loudest. The vertical scale is frequency in Hertz, and the horizontal time scale is in seconds. Each loud call (clearest between 40-100 Hz) is followed about 3 seconds later by a similar weaker signal, likely a reflection off the ocean surface, then another signal about 6.5 sec after the first, likely reflected off the ocean floor, ocean surface, and then back down to the hydrophone at the ocean floor.
The 8.6 magnitude Sumatra earthquake recorded by the ACO
A magnitude 8.6 earthquake struck off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra on April 11, 2012. The event was recorded by the ACO hydrophone as shown on the left.
A 3.2 Magnitude earthquake shaking up the ACO
Here's a small Magnitude 3.2 earthquake recorded at ACO at a distance of 157 km east of Station ALOHA in the deep-ocean. The quake, located by HVO was at 21.9367N -156.6795 on Feb 19, 2012 at 09:18Z.
Listen to our new Shoutcast server
Listen to our new Shoutcast server with embedded web player to listen to whales near the ACO.
Embedded web player tested with IE9, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera. 64 listeners maximum. Click *here* to listen to the hydrophone in
real-time.
Fin whales heard near the ACO on November 21st!
The ACO hydrophone detected Fin whales on November 21, 2011. It is expected that more whales will be heard near the ACO site in the coming months. Click *here* to listen to the hydrophone in real-time and maybe you can hear a whale passing by (Real Player required PC / Mac).
New videos of Deep Sea Creatures visiting ACO
The ACO video camera was able to record the visits of two deep sea creatures. Colleagues in the Biological Oceanography division of SOEST are looking towards using videos similar to these to help understand the behavior of deep water shrimp and sea cucumbers.
ACO featured on KITV News
5 km beneath the surface of the ocean, the Aloha Cabled Observatory brings an infrequently observed and little understood habitat into light. Through cables and oceanographic instruments, scientists are able to look at the seafloor and in a way they rarely can: instantly and for years to come.
See Data and Plots
Connecting Station ALOHA to scientists on Oahu is a retired AT&T telephone cable. The observatory has the capacity to listen to ocean through hydrophones. The temperature and salinity in the water are measured. Through acoustic sensing, the current profiles above the seafloor are being plotted. This data is sent back to Oahu at the speed of light into the hands of those who analyze it to discover patterns of ocean circulation, ocean-atmosphere interactions and climate change.
The ACO
The ALOHA Cabled Observatory (ACO) is a system of hardware and software that extends electric power and the Internet offshore, supporting sustained real-time observations in the deep ocean. The ACO is connected to Oahu, Hawaii by the HAW-4 telecommunications cable transferred to the project by AT&T in 2007.