Explorers will test the capabilities of a new technologically advanced underwater vehicle in the island’s waters this month.

The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences said the vessel, DeepVenture, is being paired as a companion of Alvin — one of the world’s first deep sea submersibles.

The two will be accompanied by their mother ship, the RV Atlantis which is expected to dock at St George’s on June 11.

It comes as the island continues to serve as the base to expand humanity’s reach into the deep ocean, BIOS said.

The RV Atlantis and the RV Atlantic Explorer, run by BIOS, will both operate in Bermuda’s waters this month, the institute said.

Their work will support international efforts to better understand climate change, ocean health and the deep sea.

In an online post, BIOS said that Atlantis — which is owned by the US Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — and Alvin, have made use of Bermuda’s proximity to deep water to conduct engineering tests, particularly after the submersible’s regular, Navy-mandated overhauls.

The institute added that this year, in addition to recertifying Alvin, the shipboard team of engineers and ship’s crew will also test the DeepVenture as “a potential companion vehicle to scout sea floor locations prior to submersible dives”.

Anna Michel, a chief scientist of the National Deep Submergence Facility at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said Bermuda was the site of the first tests of an autonomous underwater vehicle with Alvin in 2006.

She added: “DeepVenture marks a new milestone in this sort of paired technology.

“The compact, modular vehicle will help maximise the efficiency of dive time by Alvin, which is at a maximum depth of 6,500 metres — approximately four miles.

“Throughout the progression of that technology, Bermuda has served as the base for us to expand humanity’s reach into the deep ocean.”

Alvin, a human occupied vehicle owned by the United States Navy, can reach depths of 6,500 metres to give researchers in-person access to 99 per cent of the ocean floor.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution said the vessel — which was commissioned in 1964 as one of the world’s first deep-ocean submersibles — has remained state-of-the-art as a result of numerous overhauls and upgrades made over its lifetime.

BIOS, a unit of Arizona State University’s Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, has for decades supported world-class research by maintaining long-term ocean monitoring programmes, operating research vessels and facilitating international scientific collaboration.

The institute said the Atlantic Explorer is on its way back to Bermuda following a research expedition to Cape Verde.

Kristen Buck, a professor in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University, spoke on the research expedition.

Dr Buck said: “Our collaborative project is examining how iron and organic carbon interact in the ocean and how those interactions may be influenced by changing oxygen conditions.

“By combining long-term observations from Bermuda with new measurements and experiments conducted near Cape Verde, we are working to better understand how carbon and nutrients are transported to the deep ocean and how these processes may respond to future environmental change.”

Ben Twining, a senior research scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and one of the scientific leads of the project, said the expedition is helping scientists better understand ocean productivity in a changing climate.

“RV Atlantic Explorer has provided an ideal platform from which to study the dynamic chemistry of iron in the Atlantic Ocean,” he said.

“This work will help improve predictions of ocean productivity in the future.”

BIOS said research conducted from Bermuda contributes directly to global efforts to understand ocean warming, carbon storage, ecosystem resilience and the impacts of climate change.

The island's long-term monitoring programmes have created some of the world's most valuable records of environmental change in the open ocean, it added.