HEBBLE Project records

The goal of the High Energy Benthic Boundary Layer Experiment (HEBBLE) was to elucidate deep sea processes of flow-sediment interaction, particularly the role of high energy ocean bottom current events in forming the seafloor topography, transporting material, and mixing the bottom of the water column. The benthic boundary layer (BBL) is the region from a few tens of centimeters below the deep sea floor to a few tens of meters above the floor, at depths where surface wave effects are negligible. The term “high energy BBL” refers to areas in which the dominant processes affecting the sediment are flow related. HEBBLE comprised a series of observations at and near the sea bottom, in water depths of 4 to 5 km, in areas of the western North Atlantic where high energy current events occur. The research was carried out jointly by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and scientific principal investigators from throughout the nation. The project director was WHOI’s own Charlie Hollister.

[This information was taken from the JPL Publication 80-2 High Energy Benthic Boundary Layer Experiment (HEBBLE): Preliminary Program Plan and Conceptual Design.]