The Autosub6000, the world’s most advanced robot submarine.  Photo: National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, UK

A state-of-the-art British submarine will be spending most of the next two months prowling the entire length of the Cayman Trough, thought by scientists to be the deepest volcanic ridge in the world.

The specially designed robot sub is only a mere 5.5 meters long, but can dive to a metal-crushing depth of 6,000 meters, half the length of Seven Mile Beach. Roughly the size of the mini-buses that ply the West Bay Road, the Autosub 6000 is equipped with sonar as well as special temperature, depth and chemical sensors.

The information reported from the depths of the vast trench, which has never before been fully explored, will then be carefully studied by a British scientific team aboard the new research ship, the James Cook.

Scientists say the Cayman Trough, which extends from the Cayman Islands to Jamaica, was created eons ago when the massive Caribbean tectonic plates were pulled away from the American plates, probably due to ancient volcanic eruptions.

Dr Jon Copley told the BBC that the goal of the Southampton-based National Oceanography Centre is to locate still-active volcanic vents on the ocean floor. Once found, the marine life, gases and soil samples around the vents will be collected and studied.

The temperatures around the volcanic vents are expected to be extremely hot.

“They could be hotter than 930 degrees Fahrenheit, and if they are that hot, they will probably have quite different chemistry and life forms – we expect to find new species,” Dr Copley told the BBC.

Marine experts believe that once the sub dives to depths of more than 3,000 meters, one of every two animals that it encounters will be a new and unknown species.

“The deep ocean is our planet’s largest eco system,” Dr Copley said. “If we are going to use its resources responsibly, then we need to understand what determines its pattern of life.”