USGS researcher working on a “minipod”, a pyramid shaped bottom lander

USGS researcher working on a “minipod”, a pyramid shaped bottom lander.  The cases contain batteries and electronics and the red spheres are the recovery floats for the lander.  The case with the orange stripe is an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler, which measures currents throughout the water column and surface waves.  There is also a sonar which uses acoustics to take time lapse images of the seafloor out to 5 m around the lander.