NOAA Teacher at Sea
Tamil Maldonado
Onboard NOAA Ship Fairweather
July 18 – 28, 2005
Mission: Hydrographic Survey
Geographical Area: North Pacific
Date: July 19, 2005
Science and Technology Log
We took off from port at 10:00 a.m., after dealing with some ship problems. An hour after we started testing all research equipment and noticed there was a problem with the coaxial cable that connects nets with computer interface. The Electrical Technician worked with that issue for hours. Everything else was fine. This coaxial cable and getting data information to computers was really important to get research correctly. They should be able to know depth, temperature, salinity, pressure and chlorophyll information through the net’s path in water, main keys for their oceanographic research.
At night I interviewed Chief Scientist Janet T. Duffy-Anderson and other participating scientists (Colleen E. Harpold, Matthew T. Wilson, Miriam J. Doyle, Sigrid A. Salo, Dylan Righi, David G. Kachel and William J. Floering). We discussed cruise objectives and operations. FOCI will conduct an ichthyoplankton survey in the Gulf of Alaska in the vicinity of Kodiak Island, Alaska. This area is a known nursery ground for a variety of species of fish – walleye Pollock, Pacific cod, rock sole, Pacific halibut. Work is needed to describe larval fish and zooplankton assemblages in summer, and to examine the movement of water and associated biota from the slope to the shelf. Six satellite-tracked drifters will be released to study current trajectories in the vicinity of Port Lock Bank. Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth profiler casts will be made to characterize water column properties, collect nutrient and chlorophyll information, and to evaluate the flow field.
A goal of the Eco-FOCI is to identify the physical and biological factors that underlie ecosystem change, and to understand how those factors interact. One focus is the effects of perturbation at lower trophic levels; therefore they will collect ichthyoplankton using a 1 m2 Tucker net and collect juvenile and small fishes using a Method net. And Sea-Bird Electronics SBE 911plus Conductivity, Temperature and Depth (CTD) casts will collect physical data as well as water samples for nutrients and chlorophyll.
Scientific Computer System shall operate throughout the cruise, acquiring and logging data from navigation, meteorological, oceanographic, and fisheries sensors.
I recorded their first test and learned how to throw the nets, how to get them back, etc. In that way I was going to be able to do it myself for the next stations.
