Originally I was scheduled to be a part of NOAA Ship Fairweather‘s hydrography mission, but ship repairs have changed my assignment. I am now going to be on NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada, working on the EXPRESS mission. EXPRESS stands for Expanding Pacific Research and Exploitation of Submerged Systems.
This project has three main goals:
To guide wise use of living and non-living marine resources,
To inform potential offshore energy decisions, and
To improve offshore earthquake, landslide, tsunami, and nautical hazard assessments.
One of the main aspects of this larger project that I will be experiencing will be the use of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) named Popoki. I am incredibly excited to see the variety of experiments being done for this project!
Before we get going on the project, I had the great fortune of getting a tour of the NOAA Fisheries Lab (part of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center) and the Hatfield Marine Science Center with Alicia Billings, a Fishery Research Biologist. Alicia showed me where her office and work spaces are, taught me about how fish ages are figured out by counting the growth bands of the otoliths (“Ear stones”), and taught me a lot about the nets used for her studies on Pacific Hake. She had just gotten back from being at sea aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada, so she had a lot of insights as to how the time at sea works and how much the scientists look forward to being able to work in the ocean environment.
Pacific Hake otolith example – note the rings to count!
I also had the opportunity to visit the Oregon Coast Aquarium, which had some incredible touch tanks and viewing tunnels showing the marine life of Oregon. I was able to find answers to many of the homework questions the students I teach gave me before I left (mainly about the octopus, crab, and jellyfish populations!)
Oregon Coast Aquarium images: (1) The students I teach really wanted to see how an octopus moves, so they will love the videos I took of this very large octopus! (2) I arrived at the aquarium just in time to see the sea otters being fed. (3) One of the 3 tunnels that immerses visitors in the sea life of Oregon.
We leave port later today, and I cannot wait to see the incredible work being done!
Personal Log
I am very excited to be sailing aboard NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada. I am so grateful to Emily Susko for arranging this quick change (while on her week off of work) so that I could still be a part of the Teacher at Sea program, despite the delays with NOAA Ship Fairweather.
My name is on my stateroom door!
The EXPRESS program will be an excellent example of interdepartmental work, as it will feature scientists from NOAA, University of Alaska, and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Combined with the beautiful partnership between the NOAA Officer Corps (the people who run the ships) and the NOAA science team (the people working on the specific project that sails aboard the ships), it will be great to see how all of these groups of people contribute to the greater project – definitely some great lessons and examples to bring back to the students in our school!
Music Connection
Since it is my belief that music connects to everything, the last section of each blog post will feature connections to music. While I was getting a tour of the beautiful Gladys Valley Marine Studies Building from Alicia, I saw an exhibit on a musical instrument that has been made from hollow bull kelp. There was a listening station where you could hear a hollowed bull kelp being played. The beauty of this instrument is that it is environmentally responsible – the bull kelp wash ashore regularly, so they do not need to be harvested. Kelp decays quickly, so the horn must be played within a week of it washing ashore. The projects displayed were showing the collaboration between music and ecology.
Picture of bull kelp. Alicia Billings mentioned that sea lions and seals sometimes hold onto the kelp while feeding.Bull kelp horn being played by musician Alex Ellsworth (Photo credit: Alex Ellsworth)An example of a dried hollow bull kelp horn
NOAA Teacher at Sea Alexandra (Alex) Miller, Chicago, IL Aboard and Inport NOAA Ship Bell M. Shimada May 27 – June 10, 2015
Mission: Rockfish Recruitment and Ecosystem Assessment Geographical area of cruise: Pacific Coast Date: Thursday, May 28th, 2015
Personal Log
A panoramic view from Yaquina Point, gray whales can often be seen from the Point on their migration route, one of the longest in the animal kingdom.
Greetings from NOAA Ship Bell M.Shimada!
From my time onboard I have learned it takes a lot of people to run a ship this size, which helps explain why, due to a staffing issue, we have been delayed until tomorrow, Friday, at 1000. All scientists and crew are being asked to assemble on deck at 0800 for a briefing where I imagine we will go over responsibilities and safety precautions before heading out to sea.
Our run has changed its course slightly since cutting down to 13 DAS (days at sea); we will now cruise between Southern Oregon and Gray’s Harbor, WA, with all the same mission objectives. While we haven’t gone anywhere yet, this time in port is affording me the opportunity to explore Newport and assist in and observe research that is being done by the scientists on land.
Newport has a considerable number of marine science facilities and most of the scientists I will be working with have or will have labs here in which they process the data they collect while in the field—the field can either be the sea or the land, depending on the study—and while the various organizations at the Hatfield cooperate and share research findings (as all good scientists do), there are distinctions in terms of what each scientist studies and, essentially, who pays them to do it.
The lighthouse at Yaquina Head.
Let’s start at the beginning. Most of the scientists going on this cruise of the Shimada are biologists. Biologists are scientists who study living things (bio-life, ology-study of) and so far I have met two kinds. Amanda’s specific field of biology is ornithology (making her an ornithologist), which specializes in the study of birds. Will Fennie, among others who you will hear more about, is an ichthyologist, a scientist who studies fish. For both, they will work at sea and on land to first collect and then process the information or samples (known as data in the scientific community). As I mentioned before, Amanda works with the Seabird Oceanography Lab at Oregon State University and starting in the fall semester, Will will begin his Ph.D. studies there as well. Other scientists on board are affiliated with other schools, like University of Oregon and Yale University, and some NOAA employs directly. You’ll meet some of them later on.
So, while I may not be at sea, I’m taking every opportunity I can to learn about how these scientists work, what their lives are like on and off the ship and what the significance of their research is. Yesterday, I rode with Amanda up to the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area (it’s a beautiful name, really, but hereafter I will refer to it as Yaquina Head). Yaquina Head is home to Oregon’s tallest and second oldest lighthouse, one of a series that were built along the coast to guide fisherman home. It also happens to be home to a unique nesting site, also known as a colony, for many species of seabird, including the western gull and common murre.
Common murres return to their nesting sites once the eagles are out of sight.
We were there to try and adjust an antenna that was meant to pick up VHF signal (very high frequency, just one of several different radio signals that can be used) for a common murre she and her lab mates had previously tagged. Scientists use trackers (or “tags”) for a variety of reasons because they allow them to collect information on the birds’ location. This information will be put into a computer program that can then organize it so scientists can look for trends. Trends are patterns in data, which scientists analyze to gain new understanding or develop theories (ways to explain why these trends exist). For example, maybe the data will show a trend of no pings at the colony for several hours and scientists might theorize that eagles came to hunt during that time, scaring the murres away.
All of that was just hypothetical, but in fact, eagles had been hunting at Yaquina Head earlier that morning so thousands of murres were off the colony and sitting in the water. If you click on the first image in this post and zoom in you can see what look like black dots in the water. Each one is a seabird. As Amanda and her lab technician, Ian, worked to try and get the signal to come in clear without static, I wandered and watched for birds. I was also hoping to spot a spout, the tell tale sign of a whale or dolphin, but, alas, no luck.
In the end, the antenna issue was not resolved. Amanda said another member of her lab would be able to come out and take a look at it, another upside of being able to work in collaboration with others. At sea, she will mostly work solo, keeping a careful watch for various seabird and marine mammal species, but she’s already recruited me for data entry so that while she watches, I can help keep track of which species are spotted, what they were doing when they were spotted, and which direction they were traveling. All of this will be GPS stamped and stored to create a database of information, which will be shared among labs and researchers at different universities and institutions. When it’s operating at its best, science is a collaborative endeavor with the end goal being better understanding of our world.
Amanda and Ian adjust the VHF antenna to try and catch 24-hour GPS data for a tagged common murre.
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Today, I wanted to hike on the South Jetty to get a bit of exercise so I caught a ride with Will who was heading out to surf. If you choose to be an oceanographer or marine biologist, odds are you’ll end up living most of your life by the ocean, so if, like Will, you enjoy being in the water, it’s certainly something to consider.
A panoramic view of the South Jetty and the beaches of Newport.
Hiking out on the South Jetty, the path is easy-going for the first 150 feet or so, after that the distances between the rocks require a more careful eye and take up a bit more of your attention. Every now and then I would stop and try to catch a decent close-up picture of some of the seabirds that were constantly flying overhead.
A cormorant flies by me.
The sheer number of animals that live off the Oregon coast can keep your head turning for hours, which is good because I was trying to split my time between watching the horizon for spouts and snapping photos of the gulls, cormorants and murres. My eyes may have been playing on tricks on me—I really, really want to see a whale—but I swore I saw a spout. A big part of me wanted to take off running down the jetty to get a closer look, but that was a near impossibility unless I wanted to run the risk of jumping from rock to slippery, yellow-lichen covered rock. I did however manage to get a few of the types of photos I was hoping to get.
A flock of what appear to be cormorants.
After a quick coffee run, Will and I decided to check out the Oregon Coast Aquarium. While it can boast being a member of the top-10 best aquariums in the country, I think its real claim to fame is its former celebrity resident, Keiko the orca (killer whale), star of Free Willy, the 90s film that launched a generation of children who wanted to grow up and become marine biologists.
The aquarium focuses on education about the different marine life native to the Oregon coast, with exhibits on sea otters, harbor seals and California sea lions as well as the mysterious giant Pacific octopus. We were lucky to catch the rotating exhibition on shipwrecks, which focused both on the process by which archaeologists discover, unearth and study artifacts from shipwrecks in order to learn the story of their demise and how they become teeming centers of life, functioning as artificial habitat, once they make their way to the ocean floor.
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For our last night in port, Ric wanted to bring together as many of the scientists and crew as he could to give everyone an opportunity to get to know each other a bit before we made way. I met Tyler Jackson, a marine biologist from Oregon State University who is studying crab populations and Emily Boring, an undergraduate from Yale University. She’s just finished her freshman year, and she’s taking advantage of her summer to learn a bit more about a career she’s been interested in since she was in fourth grade. I would say that Emily is making a great choice to learn more and she’s definitely getting a head start if a life of research is what she ends up wanting.
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In darkness, we drove across the Yaquina Bay Bridge for the last time, the lights from restaurants and homes outlined the coast and traced down the docks, drawing our eyes to the Shimada, illuminated and waiting for us to take to the sea.
Good night Shimada.
Did You Know?
Giant Pacific octopus are highly intelligent and have such sophisticated camouflage that they can mimic color and texture of their surroundings, allowing them to hide and then pounce on their prey.
Correction:
You were told there would be seabirds in that panoramic picture and unfortunately, there are not. There are seabirds in this picture below.
Amie Ell, NBCT Columbia High School – White Salmon, WA
Hello everyone! Thank you for visiting my blog. I hope you continue to follow my journeys this summer. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Amie Ell. I am a teacher of sciences and mathematics at Columbia High School in White Salmon, WA. I live across the beautiful Columbia River in The Dalles, Oregon with my husband and two daughters. I have taught for 10 years, 8 of them with my wonderful CHS clan! I teach Physical, Earth, and Space Sciences as well as Algebra to primarily 9th graders.
This Friday I will fly to Kodiak to meet the crew of the Oscar Dyson and begin my adventure. I was elated to learn that I had been chosen to be a part of the NOAA Teacher at Sea program and assigned to the Oscar Dyson. I had hoped that I would be given the opportunity to visit Alaska. I have traveled to and explored many tropical ocean waters, but this will be my first Alaskan experience. The commanding officer tells me that “…This Gulf of Alaska Pollock survey is one of the best ways to see the remote coastline of Alaska and to experience one of its foundation industries from a research perspective…”
The NOAA Ship Oscar Dyson (photo courtesy of NOAA)
I have learned that I will be helping with a survey of the Alaskan walleye pollock. The main source of fish for many fast food fish sandwiches, fish sticks, and even your imitation crab meat is the walleye pollock. It is very important for scientists to maintain a careful watch on these fish so that their populations are not decimated by overfishing.
Please leave questions and comments for me. I would love to hear from you all. I know I will be missing home, friends, family, and all “my kids” at Columbia High. Check back often. I will always try to investigate and answer any questions you have. Let’s begin our communication with a little survey:
Did You Know? NOAA’s Pacific Marine Operations Center is located in Newport, OR. Nine ships are serviced here including the Oscar Dyson. Many of you have visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport. Next time you are there, see if you can spot this NOAA hub.
NOAA Pacific Marine Operations in Newport, OR. (photo courtesy of NOAA)
