is uncovering the mysteries of the deep.

This week the Island is playing host to the pioneering Alvin deep submergence vehicle on board its mother ship Atlantis II .

It has also been revealed that a new robot submarine, named Autonomous Bethnic Explorer, was recently on the Island before it set off on a year-long voyage in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean.

Both subs belong to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

And Bermudian schoolchildren have been given a first hand exploration of the Pacific during the Jason Project recently. They were linked up with children from all over the world to look at features like hydrothermal vents and whales.

The ABE robot has an advanced computer inside its six-foot long body guides it through its programmed paces.

It is designed to travel for four miles and examine a particular site for up to a year. It can be called back to the ship early by using an acoustical device.

Among its possible uses is to look at nuclear relics of the Cold War on the bottom of the ocean.

The robot cost $1 million, compared to $5 million for Jason and an amazing $50 million for Alvin .

ABE is now 3,000 miles east of Bermuda in the mid-Atlantic where underwater mountain ranges are some of the tallest in the world.

Scientists from the Bermuda Zoological Society yesterday explored a steep underwater bank at Challenger Banks in Alvin .