Stephen Gjertson paintings

Stephen Gjertson paintings
Sir Henry Raeburn paintings
These and other research projects, including the 10-year, $1 billion international effort to inventory the critters that live in the world's oceans, called the Census of Marine Life, and the effort to study the entire Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range where new crust is being formed, are ambitious projects that will take years to complete.Indeed, the scientists behind the plans to study the Juan de Fuca Plate believe the sophisticated network of sensors and fiber optic cables they will be laying off the Pacific Northwest will still be in use 30 or 40 years from now. Project Neptune is expected to cost about $200 million.Determing How Organisms SurviveAbout 2,000 miles of fiber optic cables will be strung across the 80,000-square-mile Juan de Fuca Plate, according to John Delaney, a University of Washington oceanographer who heads a consortium of Neptune participants from