During the route design for the lay of PacRimWest Cable, a route through a difficult area was required. The following story from Transit magazine tells all.

It’s on the map.

Although it’s unlikely to become a tourist attraction, John Marosszeky, Technical Coordinator Cable Systems Engineering, can take pride in the fact that there’s a geographical feature bearing his name some 3150 metres beneath the ocean.

As Telstra’s Senior Purchasers’ Representative, John spent about three months on board the R/V Moano Wave, the PacRimWest survey ship, monitoring and reporting on the survey work.

A preliminary study in 1988 by the New Zealand Oceanographic Institute (NZOI) identified a number of potential routes for the PacRimWest Cable to be laid between Sydney and Guam.

All route options pass through an area of the Solomon Islands or Papua/New Guinea which NZOI described as ‘one of the most geologically complex and tectonically action* regions in the world’. NZOI recommended that the Solomon Islands route options would be the least hazardous for the proposed cable.

Based on this recommendation, Telstra, on behalf of the PacRim Purchasers, commissioned Seafloor Surveys International (SSI) to conduct a comprehensive marine survey to find a viable route for the cable.

Armed with state-of-the-art sidescan sonar imagery technology, which gives an ‘aerial view’ of the ocean floor, SSI set out to thoroughly map the route.

Experience from the PacRimEast Route Survey alerted the team to the possibility of finding unmapped geological features, so they were not surprised to discover that a series of underwater plateaus off Queensland, right on the proposed route of the cable, were more extensive and severe than shown on existing charts.

According to John, opinions were divided over the feasibility of finding an alternative route around the steep slopes of the plateaus.

‘I had quite a lengthy debate with members of the survey team about whether or not, and what direction, we should seek an alternative route.

‘Our main concern was that there was a potentially high risk of spending a lot of time, and money, in looking for a better route which may not have existed.

‘My justification for trying to find an alternative route was that we knew there would be unavoidable hazards around the Solomon Islands and the Mariana Trench so we had to minimise, where possible, the number of risk areas through which the cable will pass.’

John said he was very pleased when the team found the previously uncharted gap after only a few days, because it made the time and expense of looking for a way around the hazardous area worthwhile.

The ship’s crew and survey team jokingly called the new find the “Marosszeky Gap”, and referred to it by name in the PacRimWest Survey Report.

But what John didn’t know was the SSI submitted Marosszeky Gap as the preferred name of the area to the United States Board on Geographic Names, which subsequently approved it for use on future charts of the region.

‘I’m flattered, but a little embarrassed about it all’, John commented. ‘I feel there were others more deserving of the honour, like SSI who developed the equipment that allowed us to survey the ocean floor in detail and find seabed features such as the Gap.’

* Tectonically active - prone to earth quake activity etc.

Footnote:

The PacRimWest Cable was successfully installed between Sydney and Guam in May/June 1994 by Cable & Wireless Marine using the cableship CS Venture. The laying operation through the Marosszeky Gap went without incident and the seabed profile observed onboard the CS Venture during the traverse through the Gap indicated a flat and featureless seafloor which would provide a safe environment for the PacRimWest Cable.

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