Ocean Probe Lost at Sea

An accomplished deep-sea exploration robot met a mysterious and watery end while scoping the sea floor off the coast of Chile early last Friday morning, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announced yesterday. The Autonomous Benthic Explorer (ABE) had reached a depth of 3 kilometers in the first stages of its 222nd dive when the team on board the research vessel Melville lost contact. Because ABE has several emergency backup systems in case of mishap, the researchers assume that something catastrophic, such as the implosion of one of ABE's glass buoyancy balls, must have befallen the robot. The robot, which had pioneered the field of remote deep-sea exploration and found the first hydrothermal vents in the south Atlantic and southwest Indian oceans, was on a mission to study the Chile Triple Junction, where a mid-ocean ridge is being pushed beneath South America.