April 2015 – NOAA Teacher at Sea Blog

April 30, 2015August 21, 2021

Emily Whalen: Trawling in Cape Cod Bay, April 29, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Emily Whalen
Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow
April 27 – May 10, 2015

Mission: Spring Bottom Trawl Survey, Leg IV
Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Maine
Date: April 29, 2015

Weather Data:
GPS location: 42^○51.770’N, 070^○43.695’W
Sky condition: Cloudy
Wind: 10 kts NNW
Wave height: 1-2 feet
Water temperature: 6.2^○C
Air temperature: 8.1^○C

Science and Technology Log:

On board the Henry B. Bigelow we are working to complete the fourth and final leg of the spring bottom trawl survey. Since 1948, NOAA has sent ships along the east coast from Cape Hatteras to the Scotian Shelf to catch, identify, measure and collect the fish and invertebrates from the sea floor. Scientists and fishermen use this data to assess the health of the ocean and make management decisions about fish stocks.

What do you recognize on this chart? Do you know where Derry, NH is on the map? — This is the area that we will be trawling. Each blue circle represents one of the sites that we will sample. We are covering a LOT of ground! Image courtesy of NOAA.

Today I am going to give you a rundown of the small role that I play in this process. I am on the noon to midnight watch with a crew of six other scientists, which means that we are responsible for processing everything caught in the giant trawl net on board during those hours. During the first three legs of the survey, the Bigelow has sampled over 300 sites. We are working to finish the survey by completing the remaining sites, which are scattered throughout Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine. The data collected on this trip will be added to data from similar trips that NOAA has taken each spring for almost 60 years. These huge sets of data allow scientists to track species that are dwindling, recovering, thriving or shifting habitats.

At each sampling station, the ship first drops a man-sized piece of equipment called a CTD to the sea floor. The CTD measures conductivity, temperature and depth, hence its name. Using the conductivity measurement, the CTD software also calculates salinity, which is the amount of dissolved salt in the water. It also has light sensors that are used to measure how much light is penetrating through the water.

While the CTD is in the water, the deck crew prepares the trawl net and streams it from the back of the ship. The net is towed by a set of hydraulic winches that are controlled by a sophisticated autotrawl system. The system senses the tension on each trawl warp and will pay out or reel in cable to ensure that the net is fishing properly.

Once deployed, the net sinks to the bottom and the ship tows it for twenty minutes, which is a little more than one nautical mile. The mouth of the net is rectangular so that it can open up wide and catch the most fish. The bottom edge of the mouth has something called a rockhopper sweep on it, which is made of a series of heavy disks that roll along the rocky bottom instead of getting hung up or tangled. The top edge of the net has floats along it to hold it wide open. There are sensors positioned throughout the net that send data back to the ship about the shape of the net’s mouth, the water temperature on the bottom, the amount of contact with the bottom, the speed of water through the net and the direction that the water is flowing through the net. It is important that each tow is standardized like this so that the fish populations in the sample areas aren’t misrepresented by the catch. For example, if the net was twisted or didn’t open properly, the catch might be very small, even in an area that is teaming with fish.

Do you think this is what trawl nets looked like in 1948? — This is what the net looks like when it is coming back on board. The deck hands are guiding the trawl warps onto the big black spools. The whole process is powered by two hydraulic winches.

After twenty minutes, the net is hauled back onto the boat using heavy-duty winches. The science crew changes into brightly colored foul weather gear and heads to the wet lab, where we wait to see what we’ve caught in the net. The watch chief turns the music up and everyone goes to their station along a conveyor belt the transports the fish from outside on the deck to inside the lab. We sort the catch by species into baskets and buckets, working at a slow, comfortable pace when the catch is small, or at a rapid fire, breakneck speed when the catch is large.

If you guessed 'sponges', then you are correct! — This is the conveyor belt that transports the catch from the deck into the wetlab. The crew works to sort things into buckets. Do you know what these chunky yellow blobs that we caught this time are?

After that, the species and weight of each container is recorded into the Fisheries Scientific Computing System (FSCS), which is an amazing software system that allows our team of seven people to collect an enormous amount of data very quickly. Then we work in teams of two to process each fish at work stations using a barcode scanner, magnetic lengthing board, digital scale, fillet knives, tweezers, two touch screen monitors, a freshwater hose, scannable stickers, envelopes, baggies, jars and finally a conveyor belt that leads to a chute that returns the catch back to the ocean. To picture what this looks like, imagine a grocery store checkout line crossed with an arcade crossed with a water park crossed with an operating room. Add in some music playing from an ipod and it’s a pretty raucous scene!

The data that we collect for each fish varies. At a bare minimum, we will measure the length of the fish, which is electronically transmitted into FSCS. For some fish, we also record the weight, sex and stage of maturity. This also often includes taking tissue samples and packaging them up so that they can be studied back at the lab. Fortunately, for each fish, the FSCS screen automatically prompts us about which measurements need to be taken and samples need to be kept. For some fish, we cut out and label a small piece of gonad or some scales. We collect the otoliths, or ear bones from many fish.

It does not look this neat and tidy when we are working! — These are the work stations in the wet lab. The cutters stand on the left processing the fish, and the recorders stand on the right.These bones can be used to determine the age of each fish because they are made of rings of calcium carbonate that accumulate over time.

Most of the samples will got back to the Northeast Fisheries Science Center where they will be processed by NOAA scientists. Some of them will go to other scientists from universities and other labs who have requested special sampling from the Bigelow. It’s like we are working on a dozen different research projects all at once!

Something to Think About:

Below are two pictures that I took from the flying bridge as we departed from the Coast Guard Station in Boston. They were taken just moments apart from each other. Why do you think that the area in the first picture has been built up with beautiful skyscrapers while the area in the second picture is filled with shipping containers and industry? Which area do you think is more important to the city? Post your thoughts in the comment section below.

Rows of shipping containers. What do you think is inside them?

Downtown Boston. Just a mile from the shipping containers. Why do you think this area is so different from the previous picture?

Personal Log

Believe it or not, I actually feel very relaxed on board the Bigelow! The food is excellent, my stateroom is comfortable and all I have to do is follow the instructions of the crew and the FSCS. The internet is fast enough to occasionally check my email, but not fast enough to stream music or obsessively read articles I find on Twitter. The gentle rocking of the boat is relaxing, and there is a constant supply of coffee and yogurt. I have already read one whole book (Paper Towns by John Greene) and later tonight I will go to the onboard library and choose another. That said, I do miss my family and my dog and I’m sure that in a few days I will start to miss my students too!

If the description above doesn’t make you want to consider volunteering on a NOAA cruise, maybe the radical outfits will. On the left, you can see me trying on my Mustang Suit, which is designed to keep me safe in the unlikely event that the ship sinks. On the right, you can see me in my stylish yellow foul weather pants. They look even better when they are covered in sparkling fish scales!

Seriously, they keep me totally dry! — Banana Yellow Pants: SO 2015! Photo taken by fellow volunteer Megan Plourde.

Seriously, do I look awesome, or what? — This is a Mustang Suit. If you owned one of these, where would you most like to wear it? Photo taken by IT Specialist Heidi Marotta.

That’s it for now! What topics would you like to hear more about? If you post your questions in the comment section below, I will try to answer them in my next blog post.

April 22, 2015August 21, 2021

Emily Whalen: Making Plans, April 20, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Emily Whalen
Preparing to Board NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow
April 27 – May 10, 2015

Mission: Spring Bottom Trawl Survey, Leg IV
Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Maine
Date: April 20, 2015

Personal Log

Next week I will be boarding the Henry B. Bigelow to participate in the Spring Bottom Trawl Survey as part of the NOAA’s Teacher at Sea (TAS) program. Before I leave, I am frantically working to assess my student’s work, plan projects for them to work on while I am gone, spending time with my family and also planting seeds in my vegetable garden so that I will return to lovely little green seedlings! Although this is my first time participating in TAS, it is not the first time I will be headed off to sea for an adventure on a boat. After graduating from college, I spent several years living and working on sail training vessels where my job was to take kids out sailing and get them excited about the ocean. One of my favorite things was setting a trawl net and hauling it in by hand so that we could teach kids about whatever fish, invertebrates or plants we caught. I always loved the moment the net reached the surface and I could catch a first glimpse at what was inside!

Getting ready to teach kids about a giant sea hare, something we will NOT catch during the bottom trawl survey! — Getting ready to teach kids about a California Sea Hare, something we will NOT catch during the bottom trawl survey!

It was on one of these boats nearly ten years ago that I first heard of the Teacher at Sea program. I was sailing with a group of high school students from Brooklyn, and one of their teachers had just returned from his TAS trip in Alaska. At the time I was considering becoming a teacher, but one of the things I was struggling with was the thought of being indoors all day, every day, year after year. Hearing about his trip made me realize that becoming a classroom teacher didn’t mean I would literally have to stay in the classroom all the time! In the years since then, I went to graduate school, got married, moved to New Hampshire, taught middle school science for a few years, and most recently started teaching high school science at Next Charter School in Derry, NH.

Spring skiing at Mount Sunapee! — Great spring skiing is one of the perks of living in New Hampshire!

One of the great things about teaching at my school is that we spend lots of time outside the classroom. I have been able to take kids hiking, running, snowshoeing, to museums and exhibitions, on the T into downtown Boston and even on overnight trips to an island! In fact as I am typing this, my hands are muddy from taking our students to a state park and building a log bridge as part of an earth day initiative. As a staff, we are constantly pushing our students to step outside their comfort zone and interact with new people, visit new places and try new things. Hopefully they realize that this is exactly what I am doing when I head out to sea next week!

Ice skating with some of the students at Next Charter School!

When I leave, I will be spending two weeks on board the Henry B. Bigelow, which is a 208-foot research vessel that was built in Mississippi and launched in 2005. The boat has a sophisticated equipment on board that allows scientist to track, study and measure marine mammals, fish and other sea creatures. The hull of the boat is designed to reduce noise, which allows for more accurate measurements and also prevents the animals that scientists are attempting to student from getting scared away. I’m looking forward to learning more about the ship’s technology and how it allows us to build rich and robust picture of the species of the North Atlantic.

NOAA Research Vessel Henry B. Bigelow — A glamorous shot of the Henry B. Bigelow. Photo courtesy of NOAA.

Another cool thing about this boat is that the name was chosen by a group of high school students from my home state of New Hampshire as a prize for winning a regional NOAA contest. When I mentioned this to my friend Forrest, who has spent lots of time on the water up and down the east coast, he suggested that the boat may have been named after the same Bigelow as Bigelow Bight, which is a geographical feature several miles east of the New Hampshire coastline.

My daughter Harper and my husband Jared looking out at Bigelow Bight from Portsmouth, NH

After doing a little more research on my own, I learned that Henry Bryant Bigelow was a world renowned marine biologist from Massachusetts who spent his life making great contributions to the field of oceanography. Aside from a NOAA ship, and marking on a nautical chart, there are also over two dozen species of algae and protists as well as medal of achievement in oceanography that are named after him!

The next time I write, I will be well underway on my trip! Please comment below with any questions you have or topics you would like me to write about!

April 8, 2015August 21, 2021

Theresa Paulsen: Mission Accomplished, April 2, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Theresa Paulsen
Aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer
March 16-April 3rd

Mission: Caribbean Exploration (mapping)
Geographical Area of Cruise: Puerto Rico Trench
Date: April 2, 2015

Weather Data from the Bridge: Partly Cloudy, 26 C, Wind speed 12 knots, Wave height 1-2ft, Swells 2-4ft.

Science and Technology Log:

What are the mappers up to?

After we completed our two priority areas of the cruise, the mappers have been using Knudson subbottom sonar to profile the bottom of the trench. Meme Lobecker, the expedition coordinator sends that data directly to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for processing. They returned some interesting findings.

The subbottom sonar sends a loud “chirp” to the bottom. It penetrates the ocean floor. Different sediment layers reflect the sound differently so the variation and thickness of the layers can be observed. The chirp penetration depth varies with the sediments. Soft sediments can be penetrated more easily. In the picture below, provided by USGS, you can see hard intrusions with layers of sediments filling in spaces between.

The intrusions are basement relief, likely uplifting deformation ridges created by the subduction of the North American Plate. The subduction is now oblique, with the North American and Caribbean plates mostly sliding past each other now – sort of like the San Andreas Fault – but there is still some subduction happening. Subbottom Image and caption courtesy of USGS.

How does the bathymetry look?

In the last two days, I have been really enjoying the incredible details in the bathymetry data the multibeam sonar has gathered. We mapped over 15,000 square miles on our voyage! Using computer software we can now look at the ocean floor beneath us. I tried my hand at using Fledermaus software to make fly-over movies of the area we surveyed (or should I say swim-over movies). Check them out:

I also examined some of the backscatter data. In backscatter images soft surfaces are darker, meaning the signal return is weaker, and the hard surfaces are whiter due to stronger returns. One of the interns, Chelsea Wegner, studied the bathymetry and backscatter data for possible habitats for corals. She looked for steep slopes in the bathymetry and hard surfaces with the backscatter, since corals prefer those conditions.

Intern poster project — Intern Poster Project by Chelsea Wegner

Chelsea Wegner Poster (pdf)

On the next leg, the robotic vehicle on the ship will be used to examine some of the areas we were with high-definition cameras. You can watch the live stream here. You can also see some of the images and footage from past explorations here.
This is a short video from the 2012 expedition to the Gulf of Mexico to tempt you into tuning in for more.

Personal Log:

The people on this vessel have been blessed with adventurous spirits and exciting careers. Throughout the cruise, I heard about and then came to fully understand the difficulty of being away from family when they need us.

I would like to dedicate this last blog to my father, Tom Wichman. He passed away this morning at 80 years of age after battling more than his share of medical issues. As I rode the ship in today I felt him beside me. Together we watched the pelicans and the boobies fly by. I am very glad I was able to take him on a “virtual” adventure to the Caribbean. He loved the pictures and the blog. I thank the NOAA Teacher at Sea program for helping me make him proud one last time.

My parents — My Parents, Tom and Kate Wichman

“To know how to wonder is the first step of the mind toward discovery” – L. Pasteur. These words decorate my classroom wall but are epitomized by the work that the NOAA Okeanos Explorer and the Office of Exploration and Research (OER) do each day.

Thank you to the Meme, the CO, XO, the science team, and the entire crew aboard the Okeanos for teaching me as much as you did and for helping me get home when I needed to be with family. I wish you all the best as you continue to explore our vast oceans! My students and I will be watching and learning from you!

I would also like to thank all of the people who followed this blog. Your support and interest proves that you too are curious by nature. Life is much more interesting if you hold on to that sense of wonder, isn’t it?

Answers to My Previous Questions of the Day Polls:

1. Bathymetry is the study of ocean depths and submarine topography.

2. The deepest zone in the ocean is called the hadal zone, after Hades the Greek God of the underworld.

3. It takes the vessel 19 hours and 10 minutes to make enough water for 46 people each using 50 gallons per day if each of the two distillers makes 1 gallon per minute.

4. NOAA line offices include:

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service
National Marine Fisheries Service
National Ocean Service
National Weather Service
Office of Marine & Aviation Operations
Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research

5. The pressure on the a diver at 332.35m is 485 pounds per square inch!

6. The deepest part of the Puerto Rico Trench is known as the Milwaukee Deep.

Thank you for participating! I hope you learned something new!

April 8, 2015August 21, 2021

Theresa Paulsen: Where There is a Will, There is a Way! April 1, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Theresa Paulsen
Aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer
March 16-April 3rd

Mission: Caribbean Exploration (Mapping)
Geographical Area of Cruise: Puerto Rico Trench
Date: April 1, 2015

Weather Data from the Bridge: Partly Cloudy, 26˚C, waves 1-3ft, swells 3-6ft.

Science and Technology Log:

Dr. Wilford (Bill) Schmidt has demonstrated the saying, “Where there is a will, there is a way,” throughout this entire cruise. He knew this voyage would put his new free vehicle design to the test and he came prepared to modify this, tweak that, collaborate with the crew, confer with his university team, test, and repeat. He is an engineer and that is the name of the game.

1. The first deployment looked great. The vehicle reached 1000m. The magnetometer and 3-axis accelerometer worked great. All systems were a go. A water sampling device was used as a dummy payload.

FV Dummy Test — The free vehicle with a water sampling device as a dummy payload.

Test Data — Data from the Test Deployment

Crossing fingers for more success.

2. The next step was to attach a CTD (a probe that measures Conductivity, Temperature, Depth). The deployment and retrieval process again went smoothly, this time to 2126m, but there was a problem retrieving the log file from the bottom sphere and one of the anchor burn wires did not burn.

FV with CTD — The free vehicle with CTD attached.

Collaboration required with folks on shore and the electronics technicians on this ship. Tweak this, fix that.

Troubleshooting — Dave Blessing, Electronics Tech, and Bill Schmidt troubleshooting.

Bill opened the spheres to change the batteries for the satellite transponder.

Keeping a log — Zamara Fuentes keeping a log of all of the adjustments and parameters

Repressurizing the sphere — Rolf Vieten pressurizing the sphere

All systems were a go again.

3. The crew deployed the free vehicle with the CTD to 4679 m. It took a little longer to find and retrieve the vehicle.

FV Retrieval — Retrieval of the free vehicle

The data files indicated that the galvanic releases released the anchor prematurely, at about 100 meters from the bottom. Both spheres worked during the mission. Data files were retrieved from each. During inspection water was found in the bottom sphere. Spalling of the glass (flaking) was seen on the inside. The leak is assumed to have taken place as the surface under low pressure conditions, otherwise the damage would have been worse. The electronics were in good shape but the bottom sphere had to be retired.

Oh no! Is that the end? Not when you have great minds on board!

This is where engineering in the ocean environment gets tricky. Bill can’t just head back to the university and make the necessary repairs. Instead he needs to make use of the very valuable ship time by pinch-hitting. Bill recalculated the buoyant force on the vehicle with only one sphere. It might just work!

Tweak this, lighten that, new attachments there. Ready for a float test!

Single sphere float test — The single sphere float test was a success!

Will the single sphere allow it to ascend from the bottom fast enough for us to deploy and retrieve it during our mission? That question required further testing. So the crew planned to lower it into the water a short distance with the winch and allow it to float back up. The weather would not allow it. The seas were too rough to allow the ship to stay in one place during the vehicle test without dragging the free vehicle thereby negating the results of the test.

Plan B? The operations team hatched a plan to tie the free vehicle to buoys on a long rope. That allowed the vehicle to sink and be recovered easily if it rose too slowly. First a buoyancy test had to be done to make sure the buoys wouldn’t sink with the vehicle.

The vehicle rose in less than 10 minutes so the team was back on track! With a few extras like flags for better visibility, the vehicle was ready to dive!

Preparing for the big dive to 8000+ meters!

4. The deployment into the trench went smoothly. The crew had that routine down pat. After 10 hours it was time for the retrieval. Everyone gathered at the bridge to try to spot it.

FV lookout — On the lookout for the free vehicle.

Free Vehicle Returns — The free vehicle returns from the deep!

It successfully collected data down to the bottom at 8379m, a possible record for a free vehicle!

Successful Dive — Bill content with a successful dive

The CTD data was processed and looked great during the descent.

FV CTD data — Free vehicle CTD data from the Puerto Rico Trench

Inspection of the data log showed that while the vehicle was ascending from the bottom, something was triggering a mission cancel order – 28 times! This bug required more testing and mission simulating before another deployment in the trench. Just after 8pm, Bill announced his equipment was ready to go for a 6 am deployment the next day.

5. The next day, the retrieval took a bit longer due to choppier sea conditions.

The crew bringing the free vehicle aboard.

Again the vehicle logs showed “cancel mission” messages during the ascent. It is confounding Bill and his team back home, because during mission simulations the mission goes to completion without a problem.

In all the voyage has been very constructive for Bill’s engineering team. They successfully deployed the vehicle to the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench known to be the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. That is something to celebrate! They have learned a great deal about what types of modifications they should make to improve the retrieval process.

This was a great first test of the free vehicle design. The next time out at sea will come soon enough and Bill’s team will be ready!

Personal Log

As the voyage comes to an end and we travel nearer to shore, I am filled with mixed emotions. I will miss the ocean, the feeling of being a part of an exploration expedition, and these people. I am also very happy to be going home to my family and my students. I am looking forward to sharing what I have learned. I will be looking for partnerships to help get students involved in reseach on our inland sea, Lake Superior. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment below!

Exciting moments? Seeing these creatures!

Whale — Small whale swimming next to the vessel.

Dolphin — A dolphin playing in our wake. Photo credit: Jossue Millan

Other great moments include driving the ship and making video fly-bys of the ocean floor with the bathymetry and backscatter data. Very awesome! The videos will be coming soon so stay tuned!

Did you know?

Do you remember the flying fish I wondered about a few blogs ago? I have never seen them before. At first I thought I was seeing things. I thought I saw a very large dragonfly dive into the water. Then I saw more. – schools of them jumping away from the boat all at once. In a blink of an eye they were gone.

A flying fish. Image courtesy of “Bermuda: Search for Deep Water Caves 2009 Exploration,” NOAA Ocean Explorer

According to Wikipedia, there are 64 species of flying fish! They fly out of the water to evade predators. That’s a pretty cool adaptation! You can learn more here.

Question of the Day:

April 8, 2015August 21, 2021

Theresa Paulsen: How Low Can You Go? March 29, 2015

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Theresa Paulsen
Aboard NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer
March 16-April 3rd

Mission: Caribbean Exploration (Mapping)
Geographical Area of Cruise: Puerto Rico Trench
Date: March 29, 2015

Weather Data from the Bridge: Partly Cloudy, 26.7˚C, waves 1-3ft, swells 2-4ft.

Science and Technology Log:

We launched and recovered a CTD earlier this week.

A CTD (Conductivity, Temperature and Depth probe) is used to study the characteristics of ocean water masses, as well as to insure data quality and accuracy from XBTs (Expendible Bathythermograph). In a previous blog, I discussed how the XBT is used to measure the temperature of the water to a depth of about 760 meters. That coupled with the conductivity sensors on the vessel are used to calculate salinity and pressure to derive a measure of the velocity of sound through water, an important factor when collecting sonar data.

An XBT can be launched while the vessel is underway without pausing the sonar, but it doesn’t collect data all the way to the bottom of the water column.

Launching an XBT — Trying my hand at launching an XBT

A CTD can go all the way to the bottom, depending on the depth of the ocean, the length of the tether cable, and the pressure rating of the frame and equipment making up the CTD. The titanium frame and equipment making up the CTD currently aboard the Okeanos can be lowered to 6500 meters. It is very large and requires the vessel to stay put during the entire process since it is tethered to the ship.

Since a CTD collects all three factors involved in the computation of speed of sound in water (salinity, temperature, and depth) and is therefore more accurate than an XBT which only collects temperature, it is used at least annually to provide comparison data for the XBT measurements. This is the reason our scientists used it on this cruise. Additionally, scientists on board a vessel may want to deploy a CTD more often if water masses are expected to change, or if they are interested in studying other features of the water column such as particulates, gaseous seeps, dissolved oxygen or oxygen reduction potential, or if they want to collect water samples at different depths.

In the above photo the small red arrow is pointing to the water sample tubes, the large blue arrow to the CTD, and the large red arrow to the altimeter which senses when the probe is within 200 meters from the bottom allowing winch operators to slow the descent to avoid damaging equipment. Scott Allen is the Survey Tech on board. His job is to maintain and calibrate the CTD. He helps launch and recover the CTD and then operates the software to collect and process the data.

The CTD software plots the temperature (green), sound velocity (pink), conductivity (yellow), and the salinity (blue) on the x-axes against depth on the y-axis. You can see locations on the graph where the values for temperature and salinity shift in a significant way with changes in depth. These shifts can indicate a boundary between different water masses. The upward spikes in the data are likely caused by some error in the equipment connections.

Let’s conduct an experiment!

Have you ever wondered what would happen to a styrofoam cup if you lowered into the water 2100 meters? The folks here tell me you get some pretty interesting results, so we had to give it a try.

Problem: Determine the effect of extreme pressure on a styrofoam cups.

Background: Styrofoam, properly called expanded polystyrene foam, is made by infusing air into polystyrene (a synthetic polymer) using blowing agents. Learn more here.

Hypothesis: What is your hypothesis? What do you think will happen to the air pockets if we send the cups to the depths of the ocean?

Procedure:

1. Decorate your cups, leaving one as a control for comparison after submersion.

Styrofoam Cups — Decorating 12 oz styrofoam cups

2. Place the cups in a mesh dive bag and attach to a CTD.

Cups ready — Our cups are ready to dive!

3. Lower the CTD to 2100 meters

4. Raise the CTD and examine the cups.

Raising the CTD — Raising the cups and CTD

Analysis:

So how much pressure was exerted on the cups at 2100 meters? We can use this formula to calculate it:

P = pgh

Pressure in a fluid = (density of water) x (acceleration due to gravity) x (height of the fluid above the object).

If the density of seawater is 1027 kg/cubic meter, the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s/s and the depth is 2100 meters, what is the pressure?

You should get 21 million Pascals (Newtons/square meters) or 21,000 kPa. If 1 kPa = 0.145 psi, how many pounds of pressure per square inch are exerted on each cup? About 3000 pounds per square inch. That’s about the weight of a compact car over each square inch! For comparison, at sea level the atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi.

So what happened to our cups under all that pressure? Check it out!

Cups after dive — Our cups after a dive to 2100m. They are tiny!

Conclusion:

Was your hypothesis supported or refuted? What happened to the air trapped in the styrofoam?

Air extraction is the reason that Dr. Wilford Schmidt uses iron rebar rather than cement to provide the anchor for his free vehicles. The cement crumbles as the air pockets give way and air is squeezed out. Cement is not as flexible as the polystyrene.

What other materials might change under pressure? If you don’t have access to the deep ocean or a CTD, you could always try a pressure cooker – but be safe!

Personal Log:

I am inspired by all the people working on this vessel. They are so adventurous and have seen so much. I wondered what inspired them to do what they do. Here are some of their answers:

Mapping Intern, Kristin Mello: Took a class in scuba diving and realized she loved it and wanted to learn more. Her dive instructor encouraged her to do an internship as a research diver and she has been studying the ocean ever since.

Free Vehicle Tech, Zamara Fuentes: Built a model of a volcano in school became very interested in geology. Now she studies tsunami impacts on the Caribbean islands.

NOAA Corps Officer, Nick Pawlenko: Had never really spent much time on boats as a kid, but was inspired by Clive Cussler novels to explore the ocean.

Expedition Coordinator, Meme Lobecker: Her love of the oceans made her want to put her geography skills and interest in data collection to work in the ocean environment.

Engineer, Chris Taylor: Wanted to put his love of engineering to work for good pay. “There is never a dull moment,” he says.

Mapping Watch Lead, Melody Ovard: Just likes being near the ocean. “It’s a proximity thing. I am curious about what goes on in it,” she says.

Free Vehicle Scientist, Bill Schmidt: Loved surfing and was interested to learn what caused the changes in the surfing conditions day-to-day. Then he read Willard Bascom’s book, Waves and Beaches, and was hooked.

NOAA Corps Officer, Bryan Pestone: Swimming competitively and lifeguarding on the beach led him to a degree in marine biology.

Mapping Intern, Jossue Millan: An astrobiology poster caught his eye in his physics class, which peaked his interest in life in extreme environments. He enjoys the interdisciplinary sciences.

Teacher at Sea, Theresa Paulsen: I am inspired by the wonder in a kid’s eye or on a proud parent’s face and by the beauty that surrounds us from the depths of the oceans to the expanses of space. Life is amazing – and far too short to waste, so we have to make the most of it while we can.

Sunset Image — Thanks for the inspiring conversation everyone!

What inspires you? Post a comment and let me know!

Did You Know?

For every 10 meters you go below the surface, pressure increases by one atmosphere (14.7 psi). Scuba instructors typically don’t recommend diving deeper than 40m to decrease the risk of decompression sickness, known as “the bends,” or equipment failures that could lead to drowning.

Question of the Day:

The deepest successful dive in the Guiness Book of World Records is currently 332.35 meters (1090ft)! Yikes! Read about it here.