Arctic Underwater Operations: Medical and Operational Aspects of Diving Activities in Arctic Conditions

348 Pages·1985·9.32 MB·English

by  L. Rey (auth.)

ARCTIC
UNDERWATER
OPERATIONS
Organizing Committee
President: Professor Louis Rey, Switzerland; Alaska
Vice-President: Surgeon Vice-Adrniral Sir John Rawlins, United Kingdom
Secretary General: Professor Per-Ola Granberg, Sweden
Mernbers: Johan Axelsson, Iceland; Bo Cassel, Sweden; Jakie Chappuis,
Switzerland; P Christopher, United Kingdom; Henrik Forsius, Finland;
Ron Goodfellow, United Kingdom; Bent Harvald, Denmark; Anders Karlqvist,
Sweden; D E Lennard, United Kingdom; G C May, United Kingdom;
Frej Stenbeck, Finland; Joergen Taagholt, Denmark; Leif Vangaard, Denmark
Proceedings of an international conference CIcedive '84), organised jointly by
Corni te Arctique International, Society for Underwater Technology, The Nordic
Council for Arctic Medical Research and the University of Alaska - Fairbanks, and
held in Stockholm on 3-6 June 1984.
Edited by Louis Rey(President, Comite Arctique International) with the assistance
of Sir John Rawiins (Past President, Society for Underwater Technology)
Donn K. Hagiund (Professor of Geography, The University of Wisconsin -
Milwaukee) Per-Oia Granberg(President, The Nordic Council for Arctic Medical
Research)
ARCTIC
UNDERWATER
OPERATIONS
Medical and Operational Aspects of Diving
Activities in Arctic Conditions
Edited by
Louis Rey
University of Alaska - Fairbanks
Comite Society for
Arctique International Underwater Technology
Nordic Council for U niversity of
Arctic Medical Research Alaska - Fairbanks
Published by
Graham & Trotman
First published in 1985 by
Graham & Trotman Limited
Sterling House
66 Wilton Road
London SWIV IDE
© Louis Rey, 1985
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1985
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Icedive '84' (Conference: Stockholm)
Arctic underwater operations: medical and
operational aspects of diving activities in
arctic conditions: edited proceedings of an
international conference CIcedive '84').
1. Diving, Submarine--Arctic Ocean 2. Ocean
engineering-Arctic Ocean
I. Tide 11. Comite Arctique International
III. Rey, Louis IV. Rawlins, John
V. Granberg, Per-Ola VI. Haglund, Donn
627'.72'091632 VM981
ISBN-13: 978-94-011-9657-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-011-9655-0
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-011-9655-0
This publication is protected by international copyright law. All rights reserved. No part of
this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanicaI, photo-copying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publishers.
Typeset in Great Britain by Spire Print Services Ltd., Salisbury.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction Opening Address: Human Life in the Arctic
L. Rey (Comite Arctique International) 1
PART I
MEDICAL AND PHYSICAI PROBLEMS 5
Chapter 1 Medical and Physiological Problems
L. A. Kuehn (Canada) 7
Chapter 2 Thermal Balance
w. R. Keatinge (UK) 19
Chapter 3 Environmental Stress
P. Lomax (USA) 29
Chapter4 Cold-induced Changes
L. Vangaard (Denmark) 41
Chapter 5 The Diving Reflex in Free-Diving Birds
P. J. Butler (UK) 49
Chapter6 Pulmonary Function Changes
W. A Crosbie (UK) 63
Chapter 7 Diving Response of Mammals and Birds
A. Schytte Blix (Norway) 73
Chapter 8 The Diving Response in Man
J. W. Kanwisher and G. W. Gabrielsen (USA) 81
Chapter 9 Resuscitation
V. A. Negovsky (USSR) 97
PART II
DIVING OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Chapter 10 Arctic Diving
P. Nuytten (Canada) 105
Chapter 11 Deep-diving in Canadian Waters
B. E. Townsend (Canada) 113
Chapter 12 Diving in Antarctica
P. A. Berkman (USA) 123
Chapter 13 Diver Training
K. Sveinsson (Iceland) 133
Chapter 14 Cold Water Rescue
L. A. Laitinen and S. Sipinen (Finland) 139
Chapter 15 Diving in Mountain Lakes
R. Pralong and Benno Schenk (Switzerland) 145
Chapter 16 Some Developments in Offshore Medicine
A. M. House (Canada) 173
Chapter 17 Monitoring ofBreathing Gases
P. Wiesner (FRG) 179
Chapter 18 Thermal Protection Equipment
P. Hayes (UK) 193
Chapter 19 Mechanical Design and Operation ofThermal
Protection Equipment
L. E. Virr (UK) 217
Chapter 20 Hand Protection
J. A. Adolfson, L. Sperling and M. Gustavsson (Sweden) 237
Chapter 21 What a Diving Team Needs to Know About
Hypothermia
H.]. Manson (Canada) 255
Chapter 22 The Case of the Lost Bell
S. Tq,njum, A. Pasche and]. Onarheim (Norway) and
P. Hayes and H. Padbury (UK) 263
PARTIII
UNDERWATER OPERATIONS
Chapter 23 Arctic Operations
R. Goodfellow (UK) 271
Chapter 24 !ce Conditions in the Arctic
T. J. O. Sanderson (UK) 283
Chapter 25 Development and Operation ofROVs
H. R. Talkington (USA) 297
Chapter 26 One-Man Submersibles
S. B. Boulton (UK) 305
Chapter 27 Submarine Navigation
M. G. T. Harris (UK) 311
Chapter 28 Underwater Navigation and Positioning Systems
K. Vestgard (Norway) 321
Chapter 29 The Development of a Submarine Freighter
J. Chappuis (Switzerland) and F. Abels (FRG) 329
List of Authors 353
Preface
Opening Speech of the ICEDIVE 84 Conference by
His Royal Highness
Prince Bertil of Sweden
I am very pleased to be invited to open the International Conference ICEDIVE 84,
dealing with medical and technical problems of diving and related underwater
activities in arctic conditions.
Until recent times, the arctic was considered astrange and remote area of minor
importance. However, in a world with diminishing natural resources, arctic areas
have become a region of global importance because of their enormous resources and
strategie position. Certain experts believe that more than 50% of oil reserves are
"sleeping" in these northern areas which are cold, harsh and hostile to man.
Operations in arctic areas are extremely difficult, expensive, and demand high
levels of technical, scientific and physiological achievement. One should recall for
example, that Alaskan oil investment onIy became economically viable after the
1973-1974 price explosion. Recent political/military troubles in the Gulf have
increased interest in the development of polar resources.
This conference is unique as it is the first time that medical and technical
specialists interested in the problem of diving in arctic conditions have met in an
international forum.
Development of the arctic resources is a matter of international urgency, and it
pleases me that scientists from the USA, Canada, the USSR, Australia and Europe
have gathered here in Stockholm to present their experience and to discuss problems
in this field.
I am glad that the conference came to Stockholm in early summer, a time when
our city is at its most attractive. I wish you all a hearty welcome and I wish the
organizations - Comite Arctique International, Society for Underwater Technology
and The Nordic Council for Arctic Medical Research - good luck with the
meeting.
I hereby declare ICEDIVE 84 opened.
Opening Address
Human Life in the Arctic
L. Rey, President, Comite Arctique International, Distinguished Professor of
Arctic Science and Hisrory, The University of Alaska, Fairbanks, USA
Man's involvement in the Arctic goes back almost ro the beginning of civilization
and, since time immemorial, the forbidden boreal horizons have lured adventurers ro
the challenging circumpolar regions.
However, abour the middle of the Neo-Pleistocene period, these regions were not
always open ro human adventure and, during each glacial period, expanding
ice-sheets compelled NeanderthaI man ro seek shelter deep in the mid-latitude taiga.
At the same time, a substantial part of the world's waters being imprisoned in
mighty ice-shelves, the mean ocean level dropped by nearly 200 m, uncovering vast
areas of dry, cold, subarctic tundra where primitive man deployed, following the big
game: mammoths, bears and bison.
The climate became so harsh that, at the peak of the Wurm-Wisconsin period,
some 25 000 years ago (the time of the Lascaux "optimum"), the Bering Strait itself
became a land bridge offering a wide new route ro the wandering ancient hunters,
who, journeying from Siberia, set foot in North America.
Then, around 15 000 years BP (before present), the world's temperature rose
abruptly: ice-shelves melted and the oceans, swelling again, flooded the low
epicontinental plains and thereby restored the original maritime passages, including
the Bering Strait. Thus, 11 000 years BP, the North American Arcro-mongoloids
became completely severed from their Siberian origins. Initially landlocked in
Alaska and Yukon territories, they followed the receding ice-caps and spread over
the entire Arctic, where they diversified during the following millennia. Some, the
ancesrors of the Athabascan and Algonkian Indians, remained inland. Others,
moving along the Arctic shores and hunting sea-mammals, became the predecessors
of the paleo-Eskimo, who migrated ro Ellesmere Island and Northern Greenland
more than 4000 years ago. As such, they were the forefathers of the present-day
Inuit, and they also learned how to live by reindeer husbandry in the vast barren
lands of North America.
During the same period, along the immense Eurasiatic expanses, many other
ethnic groups settled on the Arctic rim. The people of the deer (Lapps, Samoyeds,
Ostiaks, Voguls, Tunguz, Iukaghieri and Chukchi) progressively freed themselves
from the powerful influence of the Scythian and Sarmatian Confederations and were
2 ARCTIC UNDERWATER OPERATIONS
joined, a few hundred years later, by the people of the Arctic horse, the Iakuts,
stemming from the ancient Turks. Demonstrating a remarkable and almost
unbelievable adaptation to one of the harshest elimates on earth, they settled there,
in the far remote Septentrio, and developed highly specialized cultures. By living in
elose harmony with their environment and by always maintaining a proper balance
between their own needs and the surrounding wild life, they managed to survive, to
expand and even to create permanent settlements in this desolate universe of ice and
rocks, blanketed by snow, swept by winds, elusive and challenging under thick
layers of elouds or deadly ice-fogs in the long, depressing polar night but, also
sometimes, shining white and blue under the continuous bright summer sun. So
gentle was these people's impact on the environment that today, despite millennia of
permanent presence, there is almost no trace of their passage and they still fuse
perfecdy with the sensitive boreal ecosystems.
Thousands of years have passed but the circumarctic populations are still there on
the steppes and tundras trodden by their fathers and their fathers' fathers since the
dawn of time. Thus, who can dispute their rights to consider these places as their
aboriginal homelands?
Yet, they did not remain alone in the frozen north. Many "southerners" moved
there also, sometimes centuries ago - as in the Notwegian Finnmark or along the
Baltic coasts. It is even elaimed by some scholars that, in south Greenland, the
Vikings might weIl have been the original settlers. In any event, it seems fairly elear
that, contrary to Antarctica, which remained virgin territory until the last century,
the Arctic has been the permanent horne of native settlers for thousands of years and
their undisputed kingdom in the most recent historical past.
Today, however, approaching the end of the twentieth century, the overall
pattern has changed substantially and the once forgotten, mysterious Arctic wastes
have been brought into the spotlight of global politics. The discovery of huge
natural resources, mainly of large fossil fuel deposits, within the northern lands, as
weIl as in the adjacent continental shelves, has suddenly driven a vast cohort of
Arctic entrepreneurs into an area which, in the meantime, has also become a critical
zone in the delicate strategie balance between the Eastern and Western alliance
blocks. As a consequence, more and more manpower is poured into the boreal
circumpolar regions, billions of dollars are invested in accelerated industrial
development of Arctic energy resources and in support logistics as weIl as in the
completion of sophisticated early warning stations and operational military bases.
Thus, in many places, the traditional socio-cultural patterns of the local
populations have been seriously endangered, if not dramatically changed or wrecked,
and this is a matter of growing concern for governments, native leaders and Arctic
entrepreneurs, who, from Siberia to northern Scandinavia, Greenland and
Septentrional America, endeavor to promote a harmonious development of the
North but at the same time prevent the thousand-year-old cultures from capsizing in
the maelstrom of modern technology.
It is a delicate and complex problem, one which cannot be addressed in pure
rational terms since it presents obvious political dimensions in addition to raising
numerous emotional issues. Ir is equally a permanent challenge for those
entrepreneurs who, bearing the responsibility of carrying out the operations, are