AUV Sentry

The autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) Sentry was used in the Gulf of Mexico directly after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 to map oil plumes and to search for hard bottom on the sea floor.
(Cameron McIntyre, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

AUV Sentry is an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) that was used in the Gulf of Mexico directly after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. Researchers rushed to get to the Gulf as quickly as possible to learn what was happening to the deep water ecosystems found near the leaking wellhead. The AUV Sentry was deployed off of ships to map oil plumes and to search for hard bottom on the sea floor, where coral communities might be found. Read more about what researchers found on coral communities in the Gulf after the spill.