NOAA Teacher at Sea Andi Webb Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II July 11 – 19, 2014
Mission: SEAMAP Summer Groundfish Survey Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Mexico Date: July 16, 2014 Science and Technology Log
Do you ever wonder sometimes how people are so generous with their time and talents? That’s how I feel onboard the Oregon II with a crew that is simply amazing at their work. The thing is, though, they make it seem like it’s not work to them. Oh, it’s hard work-that’s certain. But they all seem to enjoy it. There is passion for the ocean here, for the environment, for honing your craft. I feel certain I’m among some of the best scientists, NOAA Corps Officers, Deck Crew, Engineers-you name it. As if that weren’t enough, you can’t beat the food in the Galley! Who knew you could get French Silk Pie on a Groundfish Survey? Shhh….We’ll just keep that a secret!
Many people like to write about the scientific facts of NOAA in their blogs and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. I mean, this is science in action, right? Me, however? I like to write about how people make me feel. The people of the Oregon II make me feel welcome. They make me feel happy I’m here. I asked one of the scientists today to please tell me, without worrying about political correctness, if the crew really enjoys the teachers being on board. She readily answered, “I love for teachers to be here. You’re all so excited to learn and that makes it fun for us!” How refreshing. As I write this, someone just knocked on my door and told me they put my clothes in the dryer for me. Really? Does it get much better than this? Teacher at Sea is about learning what scientists do but to me, it’s also about immersing yourself in the work and the friendship on board. As I work the noon to midnight shift each day and the trawls come in, we “haul back” together. Brittany, Michael, and Mark know so much and I learn more and more each day. I’m thankful for them. Kim is sharing items I can use in my classroom. They’ve included me in what they do, they’re teaching me, and I’m making friends. For that, I am thankful.
She’s an amazing ship. Something I’ve heard on board is that she’s “a good ‘ole girl.”The beautiful blue ocean today~Blue skies and blue waters in the Gulf of Mexico.Brittany, Michael, and Mark share their wisdom with me as I learn about all the creatures of the sea. It’s truly magnificent to see so many different types of animals.It takes everyone working together to get the job done.There are beautiful creatures like this every day here.Well, they have beautiful qualities, too!This is the food chain in action!Pretty cool!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Kaitlin Baird Aboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow September 4 – 20, 2012
Mission: Autumn Bottom Trawl Survey with NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center Geographical Area: Back in port! Newport Rhode Island Date: September 21st
Weather Data: Air Temperature: 13.8 (approx.57°F)
Wind Speed: 10.01 kts
Wind Direction: North
Surface Water Temperature: 19.51 °C (approx. 67°F)
Weather conditions: overcast
Science and Technology Log:
I thought I would end my trip on the Henry B. Bigelow with some fun facts!
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Did you know?
The Fisheries Scientific Computer System (FSCS) is able to prompt the data recorders with all actions needing to be performed for a particular species. It is coded with unique barcodes for every sample taken. Back in the laboratory all scientists receiving samples can receive all the information taken about the given organism by scanning this unique barcode!
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Barcoding for species caught on cruise for further analysis
Did you know? Science crew operating on the back deck are required to wear an Overboard Recovery Communications Apparatus (ORCA). This system if it is activated sends a signal by way of radio frequency to a receiver on the ship’s bridge. This system responds immediately to the ship receiver and has a direction finder to help locate the man overboard.
Me getting ready to head to the back deck with my ORCA around my neck
Personal Log:
It would take me hours to go through all of the amazing creatures we caught and surveyed on this trip, so I thought I would write some fast facts about some of my favorites! Enjoy!
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Did you know?
The male spoon arm octopus has a modified arm that passes spermatophores into the oviducts of the female. Pretty neat stuff!
Spoon arm octopus
Did you know? Stargazers, like this one, have an electric organ and are one of few marine bony fish species that are able to produce electricity. This is known as Bioelectrogenesis. They also hide beneath the sand with just their eyes sticking out and ambush their prey!
Stargazer
Did you know? This fish, the Atlantic midshipman, has bioluminescent bacteria that inhabit these jewel–like photophores that emit light! It also interestingly enough uses this function in fairly shallow waters!
Midshipman photophores
Did you know? Sea spiders like this one have no respiratory organs. Since they are so small gasses diffuse in and out of their bodies, how cool is that!
Sea spider
Did you know? The flaming box crab, Calappa flammea, uses its scissor-like claws that act as a can opener. It has a special modified appendage to open hermit crabs like a can opener!
Flaming box crab
Did you know? A female Atlantic angel shark like this one can have up to 13 pups!
Angel shark
Did you know? Seahorses suck up their food through their long snout, and like the flounders I talked about at the beginning of the cruise, their eyes also move independently of each other!!
Seahorse
Did you know? Horseshoe crabs, like this one, have blue blood. Unlike the blood of mammals, they don’t have hemoglobin to carry oxygen, instead they have henocyanin. Because the henocyanin has copper in it, their blood is blue!
Horseshoe crab
Last but NOT least, Did you know? According to the Guiness Book of World Records the American Lobster has been known to reach lengths over 3 ft (0.91 m) and weigh as much as 44 lb (20 kg) or more. This makes it the heaviest marine crustacean in the world! This one was pretty large!!
American Lobster
A big farewell to everyone on the Henry B.Bigelow! Thanks so much, i had a great time and learned a lot! Thanks for reading!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Andrea Schmuttermair Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II June 22 – July 3
Mission: Groundfish Survey Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico Date: July 7, 2012
Personal Log
As I write this final post, I sit at a cafe looking out at the Pacific Ocean. A cool ocean breeze kisses my face, and the smell of the salty sea air fills my nostrils. Different from the damp air and blazing sun that inhabit the Gulf of Mexico, yet the ocean all the same. I know I am in my element, and will soak in as much ocean as possible before heading back to land-locked Colorado.
I have spent a lot of time this past week thinking about my trip on the Oregon II, at sea with people passionate about the work they do. I can’t help but think how lucky I am to have had this amazing, once in a lifetime opportunity (although I am certain I will do this again) to not only participate in real-life science, but to be able to share this experience with my students.
A few of us scientists hanging out in the galley.
I have spent some time talking about the scientists that were on board with me on the Oregon II, and I must say that my experience would not have been the same had it not been for these people I worked so closely with. When traveling, it is not only important to see the sights and soak in the culture, but to also get to know the locals. Hear their story. Spend time with them. Listen to them. I placed as much importance on getting to know some of the scientists and crew on board as I did the work that we were doing. In that, I know I have made lasting relationships.
Our night shift team: Me, Alonzo, Lindsey, Alex, and Renee.All the scientists on the Oregon II
The more I talk to my friends and family and fellow teachers back at home, I am realizing that working on a ship is not for everyone. In fact, it takes a special person to spend a good portion of their years on a ship, away from friends and family, up to their elbows (quite literally) in fish. The adventurous side of me absolutely loved this, and hopes to do it again in the future. Alonzo, my watch leader, says I am welcome back any time. Well, Alonzo, I may just take you up on that one of these days.
Towards the end of my cruise, I had the opportunity to interview one of the junior NOAA Corps officers on board the Oregon II, ENS Junie Cassone. In her interview, she talks about life in the NOAA Corps and how one can become a NOAA Corps officer.
My final post would not be complete without a few last critter pics, as I’ve started naming my ever-growing file. Here are some of my favorite critters from our last few trawls.
One cute little hermit crab!A seahorse we found amongst the Sargassum.A flame-streaked box crab (Calappa flammea)- my new favorite of the bashful, or shameful, crabsAlex showing off one of his lionfish
To wrap up, I’d like to post one final Critter Query. When we brought up out trawls, I noticed some fish had this red bulge coming out of their mouths. I had never seen this before, and inquired what it was. Do you know what it is and what causes it?
What is the red bulge coming out of the mouth of this fish and what is the cause of it?
NOAA Teacher at Sea Andrea Schmuttermair Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II June 22 – July 3, 2012
Mission: Groundfish Survey Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico Date: July 1, 2012
Ship Data from the Bridge Latitude: 2957.02N
Longitude: 8618.29W
Speed: 10 knots
Wind Speed: 9.65
Wind Direction: S/SE
Surface Water Salinity:35.31
Air Temperature: 28.2 C
Relative Humidity: 76%
Barometric Pressure: 1017 mb
Water Depth: 57.54 m
Science and Technology Log
Here I’m filling up the BOD jar with our salt water samples from the CTD cast.
Reminiscent of my days in high school chemistry, today I had the opportunity to work with our Chief Scientist, Brittany, on completing the daily titration. If you remember, getting readings on the dissolved oxygen in the water is an important part of this survey as we locate any hypoxic (less than 2 mg of oxygen per liter of water) zones or anoxic (no oxygen) zones. This is done with a computerized device on the CTD, but we want to make sure that our readings are accurate. Because “chemistry never lies”, this is how we ensure our readings are accurate.
With our CTD, we have the ability to collect water samples at various depths. We do not collect water samples at every CTD, but rather one or two a day during the daytime hours. We collect water from the bottom to see if there is any expansion of hypoxia.
Using the Orion dissolved oxygen meter to measure the amount of dissolved oxygen in our sample.
When the CTD comes back up, we use an Orion dissolved oxygen meter, which is a handheld device, to get a dissolved oxygen reading from our samples. We put the probe on the end of the meter gently into the containers of water on the CTD to get our reading. We will use this number in conjunction with the information sent from the CTD to our dry lab to check against our titration results.
Once we have the reading with the probe, we are ready to take some samples for our titration. We then take the water samples in the cylinders, rinse out our 300 mL BOD (biological oxygen demand) glass bottles a few times with that water, and then fill the botttles up with the sea water from the bottom. These samples are brought back to our Chem Lab (short for chemistry, as I’m sure you figured out) where we will test the amount of dissolved oxygen.
Adding the manganese sulfate to our sample.This is after I’ve added the manganese sulfate and iodide. Now we have to wait for it to settle.
We are using the Winkler method to find the amount of dissolved oxygen in our water samples. The first step in this process is to put 2mL of manganese sulfate into the bottle. After that, we also add 2 mL of azide- iodide. With those 2 chemicals added, we carefully replace the stopper and give the bottle a good shake. We then can wait about 10-15 minutes for the chemicals to settle at the bottom. Pipettes are used to add the liquids and allow us to be very precise in our measurements.
Here is our sample after it has settled.
After the particles have settled at the bottom, we add 2 mL of sulfuric acid (which can be a dangerous chemical if used inappropriately), replace the stopper, and shake the bottle again gently. The sulfuric acid “fixes” the solution. Finally we add 2 mL of starch to the solution, which is a blue indicator when we put it in but turns the solution a burnt orange color. Now we are ready to titrate!
Our sample solution being poured into the beaker, ready for the titration. Inside the beaker is a magnetic stirrer.Now you can see the solution is clear in color, meaning our titration is finished. We are ready to determine the amount of dissolved oxygen.
Prepared beforehand was a burette filled with phenylarsine oxide, what we use to drip into the sample. We pour the sample into a beaker and place it on a magnetic plate. We’ve placed a magnetic stirrer in the beaker so it gently stirs the solution while we are titrating. We let the phenylarsine oxide slowly drip into the sample until it turns clear. When it does this, we note the amount of phenylarsine oxide that we put in the sample (which is equivalent to the amount of oxygen in the water), and the number should match (or be very close) to the reading of dissolved oxygen that we received from the CTD and the Orion dissolved oxygen meter.
This process is quite simple yet yields important results and is just one of the ways scientists verify their data.
Bioluminscence
One other interesting thing happened the other night on one of our shifts. We had brought in a bongo tow and were looking into the codends to see what we got. When Alex began rinsing the sample with some salt water, the whole codend began to illuminate. Why did it illuminate? Bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is essentially a chemical reaction that produces light. Many marine critters can produce bioluminescence, as seen below.
Bioluminescence in our bongo tow.
Personal Log
One of the things I’ve probably enjoyed the most about my trip so far are the relationships I’ve formed with the people on board. As a teacher, one of my top priorities is to build and maintain relationships with my students, both past and present. That became a bit more of a challenge to me this past year as I took on a new position and began teaching 600 students rather than the 30 I was used to.
Our watch leader, Alonzo, waiting to weigh our next catch.
I’ve come to love working with the scientists on the night watch, as each of them brings something to the table. Our watch leader, Alonzo, has a wealth of knowledge that he gladly shares with each of us, pushing us to learn more and find the answer for ourselves. I’ve improved immensely on identifying the different fish, crabs and shrimp we find (thanks to Lindsey, who is my partner in crime for making up silly ways to remember these crazy Latin names for all our species). Where I came in knowing names of very few if any types of Gulf critters, I can now confidently identify 15-20 different species. I’m learning more about how to look for the subtle differences between different species, and Alonzo has been able to sit back and be that “guide on the side” while we work and input all of our data. His patient demeanor has allowed all of us to become more self-sufficient and to become more confident in the knowledge we have gained thus far on this trip.
Alex with a sharksucker
Alex, another one of the scientists on my watch, shows an endless enthusiasm for marine science. He shares in my excitement when a trawl comes up, and the both of us rush out there to watch the net come up, often guessing how big we think the catch is going to be. Will it fill one basket? Two? Six? It’s even more exciting when we get inside and lay it out on the conveyor belt and can really examine everything carefully. His wish finally came true today as we are now in the eastern part of the Gulf. Alex is studying lionfish (Pterois volitans) for his research, and of course has been hoping to catch some. Today we caught 4, along with a multitude of other unique critters that we have not seen yet. Alex’s enthusiasm and passion for science is something I hope my students can find, whether it be in marine science, biology, or meteorology- whatever it is they love is what I hope they pursue.
Lindsey and Alex, getting ready to work.
Lindsey and Renee are both graduate students. Rene wanted to gain some experience and came on the ship as a volunteer. What a better way to get a hands-on experience! Lindsey has joined us on this cruise because she is doing research on Sargassum communities. She has been able to collect quite a few Sargassum samples to include in her research for her thesis. Lindsey, like Alex, is very passionate and excited about what she does. I’ve never seen someone more excited to pull up a net full of Sargassum (which I’m sure you remember is a type of seaweed) in order to sift through and find critters. She has a great eye, though, because she always manages to find even the tiniest of critters in her samples. Just yesterday she found a baby seahorse that couldn’t have been more than a few millimeters long! Outside I hear her giggle with glee- I know this is because she has found a Sargassum fish, which is her all-time favorite.
Our night shift deck crew- Tim, Chuck and Reggie
Our night watch would not be complete without the deck crew, Tim, Reggie and Chuck, who are responsible for helping us lower the CTD, Neuston and bongo tows, and for the trawl net. Our work could not be done without them.
William, one of our engineers, took me down into the engine room the other day. First impressions- it was hot and noisy! It was neat to see all the different machines. The ship makes its own water using a reverse osmosis system, which takes water from the ocean and converts it into drinking water for us (this water is also used for showers and sinks on board). One interesting note is that the toilets actually use salt water rather than fresh water so that we conserve our fresh water.
Our reverse osmosis systems.
I cannot believe how fast this leg has gone and that we only have a few more shifts to go before we return to the Oregon II’s home port of Pascagoula. As we’ve moved into the eastern waters of the Gulf, we have seen a lot of different types of critters. On average, our most recent trawls have been much more brightly colored. We are near some coral reefs too- in our trawls we have pulled up a bit of coral and sponge. The markings on some of the fish are very intriguing, and even fish we’ve seen before seem to be just a little brighter in color out here.
Due to the fact that we are finding very different critters, my list of favorites for today has greatly increased! Here are just a few:
The mouth of a scorpion fish. We’ve caught a bunch of these since we hit the eastern Gulf.A baby seahorse we pulled out of our Neuston tow. He was hiding in the Sargassum.One of our biggest red snappers.This is another type of bashful crab, also known as the flame-streaked box crab (Calappa flammea).This octopus sure liked my hard hat!
NOAA Teacher at Sea
David Riddle
Onboard NOAA Ship Albatross IV July 13 – 28, 2006
Mission: Sea scallop survey Geographical Area: New England Date: July 17, 2006
A seahorse that came up with the dredge
Science and Technology Log
It’s almost halfway through my watch now, and I have a little down time. The day started with several stations that were close together, which kept us busy. Now the sampling stations are farther apart, and I’ve had time to work on some photographs of shells.
Our catches turn up lots of interesting creatures. Some I recognize from my college invertebrate zoology course (oh, so many years ago!) Others I’ve only seen pictures of. There are occasional sea squirts, bulbous little creatures that squirt a stream of water when squeezed. We find an occasional “sea mouse”, a polychaete worm, bristly-looking on the backside and shaped sort of like, well, a mouse. Underneath you can see the segments. Hermit crabs are abundant; many of them simply abandon their shells when they’re dumped onto the deck. This is probably not a good survival strategy, since they get dumped back overboard only to drift slowly to the bottom without any protection at all. Oh well, most everything in the ocean is somebody else’s lunch anyway. We find other species of crabs as well. The larger ones are set aside and are sitting in a bucket which has seawater continually being pumped through it to keep them alive. I wonder whose lunch they’ll turn out to be? We’ve caught a few small dogfish sharks, under two feet in length. I’m told on some of the ground fish surveys they catch tons of them (literally). Considerably smaller were two needlefish, about 6 inches long and ••• inch wide.
I find myself wondering things like, “What must it be like to be that small, living in this huge ocean?” Them I’m reminded of our little planet’s location in our galaxy, and the Milky Way’s tiny place in a universe with millions of other galaxies. OK. Humility is a good thing.
Then too, I’m reminded that small is not always equivalent to unimportant. Do you like breathing? Well, consider that roughly 3 out of every 4 breaths you take come to you courtesy of the phytoplankton in the oceans of the world. There they are, soaking up the sunshine and the carbon dioxide and pumping out huge quantities of oxygen every single daylight hour. They’re microscopic, but their importance in the overall scheme of life on this planet is enormous. I suppose it would be helpful to remember, while we’re busy saving the whales, we should take care of the little guys too. But then, how would “Save the Plankton” look on a T-shirt or bumper sticker?
On a more practical note, we’re due to reach our turn-around point in 5 more stations. We will have reached our southernmost latitude, which will put us due east of the North Carolina-Virginia border. Then we’ll begin making our way back up the coast, stopping at the stations in shallower waters. I flew to Boston from my home in western NC to take part in this Teacher at Sea experience. So this is the closest to home I’ll be for the next 12 days.
I keep thinking I’m done with my log for the day and then something else happens. At station 99 we caught a seahorse! The depth was 24 fathoms, and I seriously doubt it was on the bottom, but when the dredge came up, there it was on deck.
Sightings: The osprey was still here this morning, but as of late afternoon it was gone.
