PORTLAND — Marine scientists will be using a nuclear submarine to explore the Gulf of Maine with the hope of learning more about shrimp, scallops, lobster and herring.

Use of the 137-foot Navy sub marks the first time that such a military vessel has been used to do research on the gulf’s bottom.

Scientists have used small submersibles to study the gulf in recent years, but those vessels had limited capabilities, and they held only two people.

The advantage of the larger submarine is that it can remain submerged for weeks at a time, compared to the small, battery-powered submersibles that can stay underwater for just a few hours at a stretch.

“This is an amazing research oportunity,” said Ivar Babb of the National Undersea Research Center at the University of Connecticut at Avery Point. “It’s a new thing for us, so we’re fascinated by it.”

The submarine, built in 1969, is used for a variety of oceanographic work. Its primary mission has been for geological and survey work, and has rarely been used for fishery research, said Navy Lt. Sterling Greni, the vessel’s executive officer.

Under an agreement between the Navy and the National Undersea Research Center, the sub will be available for 10 days of research.

The first of four projects will begin next Friday, when scientists Dan Schick and Dave Stevenson from the Maine Department of Marine Resources travel to Groton, Conn.

The submarine will be towed by a ship to Jeffrey’s Basin, off the Maine-New Hampshire coast, where Schick and Stevenson will spend two days on the bottom of the basin studying the shrimp population.

When Schick and Stevenson have completed their work, researchers Richard Langton of the DMR and Bill Robinson of the New England Aquarium in Boston will use the sub to study the scallop population on Fippennies Ledge, which also is off the Maine-New Hampshire coast.

The third research project will take Greg Lough of the Northeast Fisheries Center in Woods Hole, Mass., to Georges Bank to study herring egg beds. And the last project will take Robert Steneck, a lobster researcher with the University of Maine, to the southern part of Georges Bank to conduct off-shore research of lobsters.

“They say you can stay on the bottom for 30 days at a time,” said Langton. “Obviously it takes a special kind of person to do that. And I’m not one of them.”

Langton’s research will involve using video cameras, sonar and personal observation to create a detailed map of the Fippennies Ledge. He also wants to document how many wolf fish are in the area.

Wolf fish, eel-like fish sold in stores under the name ocean catfish, are natural predators of scallops and lobster.