Venus Victoria
Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea (VENUS), Victoria’s premier research project
The Victoria Experimental Network Under the Sea (VENUS) is a cabled seafloor observing system in a coastal ocean connected to researchers and observers on shore by fibre optic cable. The VENUS network is run by the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada as part of the Ocean Networks Canada Observatory. Two networks of instruments currently reside on the sea floor, one in Saanich Inlet and a second in the Strait of Georgia. VENUS researchers, students, and the public are connected by Internet from around the world. Measurements, images, and sound are delivered to any ocean explorer through a data management centre on this website. Results are available almost immediately for most instruments.
The facility consists of three seafloor nodes on two separate cable arrays, two shore stations, a network operations centre, and a data archive. The growing VENUS community is fostered through this website.
VENUS was first proposed by a group of Canadian oceanographers in 2001. The facility supports their research but welcomes new users from everywhere. Anyone may access the data or add new tools to the array. Scan our results or see the User Guide to find out more.
NEPTUNE Canada is a sister facility at Ocean Networks Canada. It is also a cabled network using many of the same concepts and designs. VENUS supports study of the seaways near shore, whereas NEPTUNE Canada is deployed into the deep sea off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Some NEPTUNE Canada experiments are tested first on VENUS; connection and data delivery mechanisms are compatible.
