NOAA Teacher at Sea
Valerie Bogan
Aboard NOAA ship Oregon II
June 7 – 20, 2012
Mission: Southeast Fisheries Science Center Summer Groundfish (SEAMAP) Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: Tuesday June 12, 2012
Weather Data from the Bridge: Sea temperature 28 degrees celsius, Air temperature 26.4 degrees celsius, building seas.
Science and Technology Log
Today I want to discuss the neuston net. This is a very large net made out of finely woven mesh which is deployed (shoved off the side of the boat) in order to catch plankton. There are three types of plankton: phytoplankton (plants and algae), zooplankton (animals), and ichytoplankton (baby fish). The neuston net rides along the surface of the water for ten minutes scooping up any organisms which are near the surface. After the ten minutes are up, the deck crew uses a crane to pull the net out of the water and bring it up to the point where someone can wash it down with a hose. This is necessary because not all of the plankton ends up in the cod end (the place where the collection jar is located) so we have to use a hose to get all of the loose stuff washed into the end of the net. After the net is washed down, the cod end is carefully removed, placed in a bucket and taken to the stern (back) of the ship where it is processed.
This is how the neuston net is moved from the ship into the water. From left to right Jeff, Marshall, and Chris are safely deploying the net.
To process the sample you must first empty the contents of the cod end into a filter which will allow the water to run out but will keep the sample. Then you transfer (move) the sample from the filter into a glass sample jar. Sometimes the sample smoothly slides into the jar and other times you have to wash down the filter with some ethanol. Once all of the sample is in the jar it is topped off with ethanol, a tag is placed inside the jar, and another tag is put on top of the jar. This sample is stored on the boat and taken back to the NOAA lab where it will be cataloged.
In this picture I am filtering out the water from the neuston sample so it can be placed in a sample jar.(Picture by Francis)
Personal Log
Today is our fifth day at sea and I’m feeling fairly comfortable with my duties on the ship. I was assigned to the night watch which runs from midnight till noon the next day. I’ll admit I didn’t make it the entire time the first day. We got done early and despite my intentions to stay up until my shift, I would have ended I falling asleep. The second night was better. I was beyond exhausted at the end, but I did manage to make it through the entire shift. At this point my mind and body have adjusted to the shift and I can easily drift to sleep at 3 pm and get up at 11:15 pm. Students, this is a great example of what it means to be responsible. If I was given the choice, do you think I would have chosen these crazy hours or to work twelve hours straight? No of course not but I really wanted to come on this expedition and this work assignment is part of the trip. So I’m doing the same thing I would expect you to do in a situation like this: accept it and get the work done.
Now I don’t want you to think that the trip is just about hard work. It’s also about seeing new places and getting to know some interesting people. I started out this trip in Pascagoula Mississippi, a city and state I never planned on visiting before this assignment. However, the people there were so helpful and friendly that I would gladly go back to see more of this region. All of you from the Kokomo area know that the major employers are automobile companies. Well, Pascagoula also has a major industry: ship building. So despite the distance between Kokomo and Pascagoula–about 900 miles–each town depends on an industry for their survival and both towns are incredibly proud of their contribution to society.
The major industry in Pascagoula is ship building.
I have been introducing you to parts of the ship, and today I’m going to tell you about the bridge. Now this is not the type of bridge that crosses a river, but rather the command center of the ship. The crew on the bridge is responsible for the safety of all personal on board and for the ship itself. There is a vast array of technology on the bridge which the crew uses to plot our course, check the weather, and to do hundreds of other things which are necessary for the ship to function.
This is the chart the bridge crew uses to plot our course.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Alexandra Keenan (Almost) Onboard NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow June 18 – June 29
Mission: Cetacean biology Geographical Area of Cruise: Gulf of Maine Date: June 16, 2012
Personal Log
Saludos! My name is Alexandra Keenan, and I teach Astronomy and Physics at Rio Grande City High School. Rio Grande City is a rural town located at the arid edge of the Rio Grande Valley. Because of our unique position on the Texas-Mexico border, our community is characterized by a rich melding of language and culture. Life in a border town is not always easy, but my talented and dedicated colleagues at RGC High School passionately advocate for our students, and our outstanding students gracefully rise to and surmount the many challenges presented to them.
Me in downtown Rio Grande City. Our historic buildings are evocative of the old “Wild West.”Taquerias dot the highway running through our town– evidence of the binational character of the community.
I applied to the NOAA Teacher at Sea program because making careers in science seem real and attainable to students is a priority in my classroom. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides a wonderful opportunity for teachers to have an interdisciplinary research experience aboard one of their research or survey ships. I believe that through this extraordinary opportunity, I can make our units in scientific inquiry and sound come alive while increasing students’ interest in and enthusiasm for protecting our ocean planet. I will also be able to provide my students firsthand knowledge on careers at NOAA. I hope to show my students that there is a big, beautiful world out there worth protecting and that they too can have an adventure.
The adventure begins on June 18th when the NOAA ship Henry B. Bigelow departs from Newport, RI. I’ll be on the vessel as a member of the scientific research party. We will be monitoring populations of the school-bus-sized North Atlantic right whale by:
using photo-identification techniques
obtaining biopsies from live whales (wow!)
catching zooplankton
recovering specials buoys that have been monitoring the whales’ acoustic behavior (the sounds they make)
Aerial view of North Atlantic right whale swimming with calf. (photo: NOAA)
Why would we do all of this? Because North Atlantic Right Whales are among the most endangered whales in the world. Historically, they were heavily hunted during the whaling era. Now, they are endangered by shipping vessels and commercial fishing equipment. The data we gather and analyze will help governing bodies make management decisions to protect these majestic animals.
NOAA ship Henry B. Bigelow (photo: NOAA)
The next time you hear from me, it’ll be from the waters of the Gulf of Maine!
NOAA Teacher at Sea
Valerie Bogan
Aboard NOAA ship Oregon II
June 7 – 20, 2012
Mission: Southeast Fisheries Science Center Summer Groundfish (SEAMAP) Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: Friday June 15, 2012
Weather Data from the Bridge:
Sea temperature 28 degrees celsius, Air temperature 26.4 degrees celsius, calm seas.
Science and Technology Log
The scientific device for this blog entry is called the Bongo net. This apparatus is actually two nets which are mounted on a metal frame. Each net has a diameter of 60 cm and is 305 cm long with a cod end which is the narrowest part of the net to catch the plankton (both plants and animals). At the opening of each net is a flow meter which records the amount of water that passes through the net in liters. This allows the scientists to calculate the total population of each type of plankton without having to collect all the plankton in the area. This is done by first finding out how many individuals there are of each species in the sample. Then you calculate the number of liters in the transect (sample area) by multiplying the length of the transect by the width of the transect to find the area in square meters. To find the volume, you multiply the area by the depth which will give you the amount of water in cubic meters. Lastly you have to take the volume in cubic meters and convert it to cubic liters. Now that you have found the amount of water in the transect you are ready to find the number of each species of plankton in that amount of water. To do this you take the number of individuals in the entire sample and divide it by the amount of liters which flowed through the net during sampling to find the number of the species per liter. Then you multiply that number by the total amount of liters in the transect which gives you an estimate of how many of that species exist in that part of the Gulf of Mexico.
In this picture I am helping Jeff bring the Bongo nets back on board the ship. (Picture by Francis Tran)
NOAA personnel aren’t the only scientists on board. There is also a volunteer named Marshall Johnson, who just finished his master’s degree at the University of South Alabama where he was working on a project involving larval fish and what they eat. He chose to come on this cruise in order to help a fellow student collect samples for her Master’s degree. Thus far he has been amazed by the vast array of sea life that have shown up in our nets and have been seen swimming around our ship. He has almost finished his Master’s degree and his dream job would be to captain a charter boat so he can share his love of sea life and fishing with other people. His advice for middle school students, “Dream big and follow your goals”.
Marshal holding two of his favorite species in the dry lab.
We also have a NOAA intern on board named Francis Tran who is going into his junior year at Mississippi State University where he is studying electrical engineering. He found out about the internship through his university and applied by submitting an essay and references to the coordinator of the program. His advice for middle school students, “do something you love, don’t settle”.
Francis with his favorite animal the brown shrimp.
Personal Log
We have been at sea for one whole week and honestly it is going better than I expected. I was uncertain if I could live on a ship for this amount of time due to my intense independence. I’m not used to giving up control of where I am and what I am doing so I feared I would be tempted to jump overboard and start swimming to shore by now. However I have found that I’m quite content to stay on the ship and am enjoying my time at sea immensely. However, I do miss my workouts. There is some exercise equipment on board but finding the time to use it is impossible. I also miss my daily yoga practices but with the ship pitching from side to side unpredictably I’m afraid of giving it a try because it is quite possible I would be doing downward facing dog pose and the ship would pitch me head first into a wall.
In order for a ship to stay at sea for an extended time it must have a well-stocked galley (kitchen) and serve excellent food. As I have mentioned before, the shifts are long and don’t exactly match up with normal meal times so it is important for the crew to be able to grab a little something in between meals. For example since my shift starts at midnight I’m hungry for breakfast at about 2 a.m., not the normal breakfast time, but I’m able to pour myself some cereal so that I am working with a full stomach and am able to concentrate on my work. However, we do have three wonderful meals prepared for us each day. Paul and Walter are the men who work to make sure the crew and scientists are well taken care of when it comes to mealtimes.
Alonzo and Chris hanging out in the galley having a little snack.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Jennifer Fry
Onboard NOAA Ship, Oscar Elton Sette March 12 – March 26, 2012
Mission: Fisheries Study Geographical area of cruise: American Samoa
Date: March 15, 2012
Pago Pago, American Samoa
Science and Technology Log:
Nighttime Cobb Trawling : Day 4
We began the trawling around 8:30 p.m. The data we collect tonight will replace the previous trawl on day 2 which was flawed in the method by which the experiment was collected. The Day 2 experiment was when the winch became stuck and the trawl net was left in the water well over 2 ½ hours, long past the 1 hour protocol.
Here’s is what the science team found.
Tonight the trawl nets went into the ocean and were timed as all the other times.
During the sorting we found some very interesting species of fish which included:
Pyrosomes: chordate/Tunicate
Two Juvenile cow fish (we placed them into a small saltwater tank to observe interesting species caught in the net.)
This is a great place to make further observations of these unique animals.
The data collected included:
Name of fish:
Numbers Count
Volume (milliliters)
Mass (grams)
Myctophids
120
700
650
Non-Myctophids
148
84
115
Crustaceans
77
28
40
Cephalopods:
16
64
50
Gelatinous zooplankton
71
440
400
Misc. zooplankton
n/a
840
900
The Cobb trawl net was washed, rinsed and the fish strained through the net. They were then brought inside the web lab for further sorting.
The white-tailed tropic bird is a regular visitor to the South Pacific islands.
We were close to finishing the sorting, counting, and weighing when suddenly we heard something at the back door of the lab. Fale, the scientist from American Samoa went to the door and proceeded to turn the latch, and slowly opened the door. There huddled next to the wall, near some containers was a beautiful black and white Tropic bird, a common bird of this area. Its distinctive feature was the single white tail feather that jutted out about 1 foot in length. He looked just as surprised to see us and we were of him. He did not make a move at all for about 10-15 minutes . We took pictures and videos to mark the occasion, yet he still didn’t budge or act alarmed.
With a bit more time passing, he began to walk, or more like waddle like a duck. His ebony webbed feet made it difficult to maneuver over the open slats in the deck. He attempted flight but appeared to get confused with the overhanging roof.
I quickly found a small towel and placing it over his head, gently carried him to a safe spot on the aft deck where he would have no trouble flying away.
The time was about 2:00 a.m. when we were distracted by the ship’s fire alarm, and we quickly reported to our muster stations. Luckily, there was no fire and we returned resuming our trawl data collection. Upon reaching the wet lab, we noticed at the stern of the ship, our newly found feathered friend had flown off into the dark night.
It was a great way to end our night with research and early hour bird watching. How lucky we all are to be in the South Pacific.
Animals Seen:
Ppyrosome
Pictured here is a Pyrosome which many came up in our Cobb net.
Cow fish
Our trawl net caught three juvunile cow fish specimans which were quickly placed in our observation tank for further study.
Tropical bird
The Tropic bird, with its distinctive long tail feather, is common in the South Pacific.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Dave Grant Aboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown February 15 – March 5, 2012
Mission: Western Boundary Time Series Geographical Area: Sub-Tropical Atlantic, off the Coast of the Bahamas Date: March 3, 2012
Weather Data from the Bridge
Position:30 deg 37 min North Latitude & 79 deg 29 min West Longitude
Windspeed: 30 knots
Wind Direction: North
Air Temperature: 14.1 deg C / 57.4 deg F
Water Temperature: 25.6 deg C / 78.4 deg F
Atm Pressure: 1007.2 mb
Water Depth:740 meters / 2428 feet
Cloud Cover: 85%
Cloud Type: Cumulonimbus and Stratus
Science/Technology Log:
Entering the Gulf Stream and Straits of Florida
“There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters.
Its current is more rapid than the Mississippi or the Amazon.
Its waters, as far out from the Gulf as the Carolina coasts, are of an indigo blue.
They are so distinctly marked that their line of junction with the common sea-water
may be traced by the eye.”
Matthew Maury – The Physical Geography of the Sea
While our cruise could hardly be called leisurely, most sampling has been spread out between sites, sometimes involving day-long periods on station while the CTD and moorings are recovered from great depths (5,000 meters). However, Chief Scientist Dr. Baringer regularly reminds us that west of the Bahamas in the Gulf Stream transect, our stations are in much shallower water (≤800 meters) and close together (The Florida Straits are only about 50 miles wide), so we should anticipate increased activity on deck and in the lab. In addition to the hydrology measurements, we will deploy a specialized net to sample those minute creatures that live at the surface film of the water – the neuston.
The Neuston net is deployed for a 10-minute tow.
Now that we have crossed the Bahama Banks and are on-station, the routine is, as expected, very condensed, and there is little time to rest. What I did not anticipate was the great flow of the Gulf Stream and the challenge to the crew to keep the Brown on our East-West transect line as the current forces us north. Additionally, as Wordsworth wrote, “with ships the sea was sprinkled far and wide” and we had to avoid many other craft, including another research ship sampling in the same area.
Ben Franklin is famous for having produced the first chart of this great Western Boundary Current, but naval officer Matthew Maury – America’s Scientist of the Sea – and author of what is recognized as the first oceanography text, best described it. Remarkably, in The Physical Geography of the Sea, first published in 1855, he anticipates the significance of this major climate study project and summarizes it in a short and often-quoted paragraph:
“There is a river in the ocean. In the severest of droughts it never fails,
and in the mightiest floods it never overflows.
Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm.
The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is the Arctic seas.
It is the Gulf Stream.”
Gulf Stream water
CTD data from the Straits of Florida 1. Note that temperature (Red) decreases steadily with depth from about 26-degrees C at the surface, to less than 10-degrees C at 700 meters. (Most of the ocean’s waters are cool where not warmed by sunlight). 2. Dissolved Oxygen (Green) varies considerably from a maximum at the surface, with a sharp decline at about 100 meters, and a more gradual decline to about 700 meters. (Phytoplankton in surface water produce excess oxygen through photosynthesis during daylight hours. At night and below about 100 meters, respiration predominates and organisms reduce the level of dissolved oxygen.) 3. Salinity (Blue) is related to atmospheric processes (Precipitation and Evaporation) and also varies according to depth, being saltiest at about 150 meters.
At Midnight, just within sight of the beam of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse (And to the relief of the home-sick sailors on board – “Finally – after more than two weeks, we are within the range of cell phone towers!”) we began our studies of the Straits of Florida and the Gulf Stream. Nine stations in rapid order – standing-by for a CTD cast, and then turning into the current to set the neuston net for a ten-minute tow.
The purpose of the net is to sample creatures that live on or visit the interface between air and water, so the mouth of the net is only half submerged. Neuston comes from the Greek for swimming and in warm waters a variety of invertebrates and even some young mesopelagic fishes rise within a few centimeters of the surface at night to filter phytoplankton and bacteria, and feed upon other zooplankton and even drowned terrestrial insects that have been blown out to sea.
On the upper side of this water/atmosphere interface, a smaller variety of floating invertebrates, notably Physalia and Velella (Portuguese man-of-war and By-the-wind-sailor) use gas-filled buoyancy chambers or surface tension to ride the winds and currents. This much smaller group of seafarers is further classified by oceanographers as Pleuston.
Prior to this cruise, my experience with such a sampling device was limited – Years ago, spending miserable nights sailing in choppy seas off of Sandy Hook, NJ searching for fishes eggs and larva rising to the surface after dark; and later, much more enjoyable times studying water striders – peculiar insects that spend their lives utilizing surface tension to skate along the surface of Cape Cod ponds.
Our CTD and net casts are complicated by rising winds and chop, but some great samples were retrieved. Once the net is recovered, we rinse it down with the seawater hose, collect everything from the bottle at the codend, rinse off and separate the great mass of weed (Sargassum) and pickle the neuston in bottles of alcohol for analysis back at the lab.
Midnight shift: Recovering the net by moonlight.Midnight shift: Recovering the net by moonlight.
Since much of the zooplankton community rises closer to the surface at night where phytoplankton is more concentrated and the chances of being preyed upon are slimmer, there are some noticeable differences in the samples taken then and during daylight hours. Unavoidably, both samples contain great quantities of Sargassum but the weed-colored carapaces of the different crustaceans are a clue to which specimens are from the Sargassum community and which are not.
Gulfweed Shrimp – Latreutes
We hit the jackpot early; snaring a variety of invertebrates and fishes, including the extraordinarily well-camouflaged Sargassum fish – a piscatorial phenomenon I’ve hoped to see ever since I was a kid reading William Beebe’s classic The Arcturus Adventure. What a tenuous existence for such a vulnerable and weak swimmer, hugging the Sargassum as it is dashed about in the waves. Even with its weed-like disguise and ability to blend in with the plants, it must lead a challenging life.
A unique member of the otherwise bottom-dwelling frogfishes, the Histriohistrio has smooth skin, and spends its life hitch-hiking along in the gulf-weed forest. Like other members of the family Antennariidae, it is an ambush predator, luring other creatures to their doom by angling with its fleshy fins.
The Sargassum fish (Histrio)Needlefish and Sargassum fish
Another highlight for me is the water striders we found in several samples. These “true bugs” (Hemiptera) are remarkable for several reasons. Most varieties of these “pond-skaters” (Or Jesus Bugs if you are from Texas) are found on calm freshwater lakes and streams, but a few members of this family (Gerridae) are the only true marine insects – representing a tentative Arthropod reinvasion of the sea after their splendid foray onto land hundreds of millions of years ago.
Two great finds: Sygnathus pelagicus– A Sargassum pipefish – a cousin of the sea horse. Halobates – the water strider. An example of the Pleuston community.
Using surface tension to their advantage, they “skate” along by flicking their middle and hind legs, and can even “communicate” with each other by vibrating the surface of the water with the hair-like setae on their feet. On lakes their prey is other insects like mosquito larvae, confined to the surface. How they manage to find food and communicate at the surface of the raging sea is a mystery, but whatever the means, they are adept at it, and we recovered them in half of the samples.
The ocean’s insect: The remarkable water stride
The scientists who provided the net are generally more interested in ichthyoplankton to monitor fish eggs and larvae to predict population trends, and monitor impacts like oil spills; so this is why samples are preserved to return to the lab in Miami.
Before packing up things after our marathon sampling spree I was able to examine our catch and observed a few things:
1. I am the “High-Hook” on the cruise – catching far more fishes (albeit tiny ones) than the rest of the crew with their fishing poles. (Needlefish, sargassum fish, pipe fish, filefish and several larval species)
2. Depending on the time of day the samples were taken, there is a marked difference in the quantity and composition of organisms that have separated from the Sargassum and settled in the sample jars – (Noticeably more at night than during daylight hours).
3. There appears to be a greater variety of sea grasses present (Turtle grass, etc.) on the eastern (Bahamas side) of the Straits. We observed one seabean – drift seeds and fruits (or disseminules) from terrestrial plants.
4. Plastic bits are present in all samples – particularly plastic ties (Table 1.)
Settled organisms in sample jars.
Sargassum fauna: Portunid crab – with eggs on her belly. (Portunus was a Roman god – Protector of harbors and gates,
who supposedly also invented navigation)
Belly view of a Caridean shrimpA tiny fish egg ready to hatch!A larval fish begins its perilous journey in the Gulf Stream.
Site/Local time
Notable Contents*
Biomass
Site
Depth
8 Day 17:48
Weed, Grasses(3 spp)
3.0 mm
79˚12’
485 m
7 Day 16:10
Grasses(4 spp)
2.0 mm
79˚17’
616 m
6 Day 14:30
Grasses(2 spp) Fish eggs and larva
Trace
79˚22’
708 m
5 Day 12:45
Water striders, Grass (1 spp)
Trace
79˚30’
759 m
4 Day 10:13
Crustacean larva, shrimp (large),
7.0 mm
79˚36’
646 m
3 Dawn 07:53
Crustacean larva, shrimp (large), water striders
Trace
79˚41’
543 m
2 Night 05:10
Crustacean larva, shrimp (small), Pipefish, water striders
*Plastic bits and Sargassum weed and its endemic epibionts are present in all samples.
Table 1. Contents in sample jars.
There is a marked difference in the quantity and composition of organisms collected at night (Left).There is a marked difference in the quantity and composition of organisms collected during the day (Right).
With sampling completed we steer north to ride the Gulf Stream towards the Brown’s home-port, and turn away from the bright lights of Florida …
“Where the spent lights quiver and gleam;
Where the salt weed sways in the stream;
Where the sea-beasts rang’d all around
Feed in the ooze of their pasture ground:”
Matthew Arnold
“Red sky at morning…sailor take warning!”
Homeward bound:
A storm battering the Midwest will impede our progress back north to Charleston and threatens to bring us the only foul weather of the cruise. Note the location of the cold front over the Florida Straits.
“Now the great winds shoreward blow; Now the salt tides seaward flow; Now the wild white horses play, Champ and chafe and toss the spray.”
Matthew Arnold
As the sailors say: “The sheep are grazing.” A gale is brewing and kicking up whitecaps as we sail north to Charleston.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Dave Grant Aboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown February 15 – March 5, 2012
Mission: Western Boundary Time Series Geographical Area: Sub-Tropical Atlantic, off the Coast of the Bahamas Date: March 2, 2012
Weather Data from the Bridge
Position: 26 degrees 19 minutes North Latitude & 79 degrees 55 minutes West Longitude
Windspeed: 14 knots
Wind Direction: South
Air Temperature: 25.4 deg C / 77.7 deg F
Water Temperature: 26.1 deg C / 79 deg F
Atm Pressure: 1014.7 mb
Water Depth: 242 m / 794 feet
Cloud Cover: none
Cloud Type: NA
“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass,
it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
Henry Miller
My evenings looking through the microscope are a short course in invertebrate zoology. Every drop of water filtered through the plankton net reveals new and mystifying creatures. Perhaps 90% of marine invertebrates, like newly hatched mollusks and crustaceans, spend part of their life in a drifting stage – meroplankton; as opposed to holoplankton – organisms that are planktonic throughout their life cycle.
MOLLUSK LARVAE
BivalveUnivalve
The lucky individuals that escape being eaten, and are near a suitable substrate at the right moment, settle out into a sedentary life far from their place of origin. For the long distance travelers swept up in the Gulf Stream, the most fortunate waifs of the sea that survive long enough might make it all the way to Bermuda. The only hope for the remainder is to attach to a piece of flotsam or jetsam, or an unnatural and unlikely refuge like the electronic picket fence of moorings the Ron Brown is servicing east of the Bahamas.
“The gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day, Is crept into the bosom of the sea.” Shakespeare
A league and a half* of cable, sensors and a ton of anchor chain are wrestled on deck during a day-long operation in the tropical heat. (*A mariner’s league equals three nautical miles or 3041 fathoms [18,246 feet])
It is easy to be humbled by the immensity of the sea and the scope of the mooring project while observing miles of cable and buoys stretched towards the horizon, about to be set in place with a ton of anchor chain gingerly swung off the stern for its half-hour trip to the bosom of the sea.
Thanks to the hard labor and alert eyes of our British and French (“And Irish”) colleagues retrieving and deploying the attached temperature and salinity sensors, I am regularly directed to investigate “something crawling out of the gear” or to photograph bite marks from deep sea denizens on very expensive, but sturdy equipment.
A retrieved sensor with bite marks.
To my surprise, other than teeth marks, very little evidence of marine life is present on the miles of lines and devices strung deeper than about 200 meters. This may be due in part to the materials of which they are constructed and protective coatings to prevent bio-fouling, but sunlight or more precisely, the attenuation of it as one goes deeper, is probably the most important factor.
Fireworm (Drawings and images by Dave Grant – NOAA Ron Brown)Handle with care! Close-up of worm spines
The first discovery I was directed to was a striking red bristle worm wiggling out of the crevice in a buoy. It appears to be one of the reef-dwelling Amphinomids – the aptly-named fireworms that SCUBA divers in the Caribbean avoid because of their venomous spines; so I was cautious when handling it. This proved to be the deepest-dwelling organism we found, along with some minute growths of stony and soft corals.
“Five o’clock shadow” on a buoy – A year’s growth of fouling organisms – only an inch tall.
On shallower buoys and equipment, there are sparse growths of brown and blue-green algae, small numbers of goose barnacles, tiny coiled limey tubes of Serpulid worms like the Spirobis found on the floating gulfweed, some non-descript bivalves (Anomia?) covered with other fouling growth, skeleton shrimp creeping like inch-worms, and of course the ubiquitous Bryozoans. Searching through this depauperate community not as challenging as the plankton samples, but not surprising since our distance from land, reefs or upwelling areas – and especially clear water and lack of seabirds and fishes; are all indicators that this is a nutrient-deficient, less productive part of the ocean.
Bio-fouling – “on the half-shell.” Skeleton shrimp (Caprellidae)
The Ron Brown is the largest workhorse in the NOAA fleet and its labs and decks are intentionally cleared of equipment between cruises so that visiting scientists can bring aboard their own gear that is best suited to their specific project needs. NOAA’s physical oceanographers from Miami arrived with a truckload of crates holding Niskin water sampling bottles for the CTD and their chemistry equipment for DO (Dissolved Oxygen) and salinity measurements; and in a large shipping container (“Ship-tainer”) from England, the British and French (“and Irish”) scientists transported their own remote sensing gear, buoys, and (quite literally) tons of massive chain and cables to anchor their moorings. (I am surprised to learn from the “Brits” that the heavy chain is shipped all the way from England because it is increasingly hard to acquire. )
In the lab: Scores of sensors serviced and ready for deployment
This is how most science is facilitated on the Brown and it requires many months of planning and pre-positioning of materials. I am lucky and can travel light – and with little advanced preparation. I am using simple methods to obtain plankton samples and images via a small portable microscope, digital camera and plankton net which I can cram into my backpack for any trips that involve large bodies of water. The little Swift* scope has three lens (4x, 10x, 40x) with a 10x ocular, and I get great resolution at 40x, and can get decent resolution to 100x. Using tips from Dave Bulloch (Handbook for the Marine Naturalist) I am able to push that somewhat with a simple Nikon Coolpix* point-and-shoot camera – but lose some of the sharpness with digital zoom. As you might suspect, the ship’s movement and engine vibration can be a challenge when peering through the scope, but is satisfactory for some preliminary identification. (*These are not commercial endorsements, but I can be bought if either company is willing to fund my next cruise!)
PHYTOPLANKTON
Centric diatom – Coscinodiscus
Dinoflagellates – Different Ceratium species
ZOOPLANKTON
A Plankton précis
Collecting specimens would be much more difficult without the cooperation of the Brown’s crew and visiting scientists, and their assistance is always reliable and appreciated. The least effective method of collection has been by filtering the deep, cold bottom water brought up in the Niskin bottles. As mentioned earlier, no live specimens were recovered; only fragments of diatom and Silicoflagellate skeletons surviving the slow drift to the bottom, which I have been able to identify through deep sea core images posted at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership website.
Needless to say, the most indiscriminate method of collection and the most material collected is through the large neuston net. The greatest biomass observed on the trip is the millions of tons of Sargassum weed, which covers the surface in great slacks around us that are even visible in satellite images.
Although the continuous flow of ocean water pumped into the wet lab and through my plankton net is effective and the most convenient collection method, the most surprising finds are from the saltwater intake screens that the engineer directed me to. This includes bizarre crystal-clear, inch-long, and paper-thin Phylosoma – larvae of tropical lobsters – that I initially mistook for pieces of plastic.
Inch-long Phylosoma larvae on a glass slide. (One of the tropical lobsters.)
“All the ingenious men, and all the scientific men, and all the fanciful men in the world …
…could never invent anything so curious and so ridiculous, as a lobster.”
Charles Kingsley -The Water-Babies
Plankton communities are noticeably different between the Gulf Stream, inshore, and offshore in the pelagic waters east of the Bahamas. Near the coast, either the shallower Bahama Banks or the neritic waters over the continental shelf closer to Charleston, the plankton is larger, more familiar to me and less challenging to sort, including: copepods, mollusk larvae and diatoms. Steaming over the shelf waters at night, the ship’s wake is often phosphorescent, and dinoflagellates, including the “night-light” Noctiluca are common in those samples.
Dinoflagellate – Noctiluca
The waters east of the Bahamas along the transect line are notable for their zooplankton, including great numbers and varieties of Foraminifera, and some striking amphipod shrimp. Compared to cooler waters I am familiar with, subtropical waters here have over a dozen species of Forams, and some astonishingly colorful shrimp that come up nightly from deeper water.
It’s not all work and no play on the Ron Brown, and there are entertaining moments like decorating foam cups with school logos to send down with the CTD to document the extreme pressure at the bottom. Brought back to class, these graphically illustrate to younger students the challenges of deep sea research.
Foam cup: Before-and-after a trip to 5,000 meters
Navigating by Dead-reckoning
On calm days while we are being held on-station by the Brown’s powerful thrusters, I can measure current speeds using Sargassum clumps as Dutchman’s logs as they drift by. Long before modern navigation devices, sailors would have to use dead-reckoning techniques to estimate their progress. One method used a float attached to a measured spool of knotted line (A log-line), trailing behind the moving vessel. The navigator counted the number of knots that passed through his hands as the line played out behind the ship to estimate the vessel’s speed (in knots). Since nothing is to be tossed off the Brown, I rely on a simpler method by following the progress of the Sargassum as it drifts by stem-to-stern while we are stationary at our sampling site. Since I know the length of the Brown at the waterline (~100-meters), I can estimate current speed by observing drifting Sargassum.
Watching sargassum, I wonder if a swimmer could keep pace with the currents in these waters. When in college
my brothers and would strive to cover a 100-meter race by swimming it in under a minute. Here is the data from east of the Bahamas. See if you can determine the current speed there and if a good swimmer could keep pace.
ESTIMATING CURRENT SPEED
Data on currents:
Average of three measurements of Sargassum drifting the length of the Ron Brown = 245 seconds.
Length of the Ron Brown – 100-meters.
1. How many meters per second is the current east of the Bahamas?
2. As a swimmer in college – with my best time in the 100-meters freestyle of one minute – could I have kept up with the Ron Brown… or been swept away towards the Bahamas?
Other navigational exercises I try to include determining Latitude and Longitude. Latitude is easy as long as you can shoot the sun at midday or find the altitude of Polaris in the night sky; and sailors have done that for centuries. The ship’s navigator will get out the sextant for this, or, since the width of one’s fist is about 10-degrees of sky, I can estimate the height of both of these navigational beacons by counting the number of fists between the star and the horizon.
ESTIMATING LATITUDE
Data:
Night observation (Shooting the North Star) – Number of Fists from the Northern horizon to Polaris = 3
Day observation (Shooting the Sun) – Number of Fists from the Southern horizon to the Sun = 5.5
If the width of a fist is equal to about 10-degrees of horizon, our estimate of Latitude using Polaris is 30-degrees (3 x 10).
Not too bad an estimate on a rocking ship at night, compared to our actual location (See Data from the Bridge at the top.).
Shooting the Sun at its Zenith at 12:30 that day gives us its altitude as 55-degrees – which seems too high unless we consider the earth’s tilt (23.5-degrees). So if we deduct that (55 – 23.5) we get 31.5, which is closer to our actual position. And if we consult an Almanac, we know that the sun is still about six degrees below the Equator on its seasonal trip North; so by deducting that (31.5 – 6) we end up with an estimate of 25.5-degrees. This is an even better estimate of our Latitude.
Here is the dreaded word problem:
By shooting the Sun, our best estimate of Latitude is 25.5 degrees (25 degrees/30 minutes)
The actual Latitude of the ship using GPS is 26-degrees/19 minutes.
If there are 60 minutes to a degree of Latitude – each of those minutes representing a Nautical Mile – how many Nautical Miles off course does our estimate place us on the featureless sea?
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Longitude is much harder to determine if you don’t have an accurate timepiece to compare local time with universal time (The time at Greenwich, England), and an accurate ship’s chronometer wasn’t in use until the mid-1700’s.
To understand the challenge of designing a precise timepiece that reliably will function at sea, I used two crucial clock mechanisms: a pendulum and a spring. Finding a spring was easy, since “Doc” had a scale at Sick Bay. For the pendulum I fashioned a small weight swinging on a string)
Using the scale to observe the ship’s motion.
Standing on the scale and swinging the pendulum even in calm weather quickly demonstrated three things:
First: I have developed my sea legs, and no longer notice the regular motion of the ship. Second: Even when the sea feels calm, the scale’s spring mechanism swings back and forth under my weight; adding and deducting 20 pounds to my real weight and reflecting the ship’s rocking that I no longer notice. Three: On rough days, even if I can hold still, the ship’s heaving, pitching and rolling alters my pendulum’s reliable swing – its movements reflecting the ship’s indicator in the lab. Experimenting helps me appreciate clock-maker John Harrison, and his massive, 65-pound No. 1 Ship’s Chronometer he presented to the Royal Navy in 1728.
Ship movement as recorded by the computerDoc: Always on duty – Sick Bay on the Ron Brown
Besides having very well-provisioned Sick Bays, NOAA ships have experienced and very competent medical officers. Our “Doc” received his training at Yale, and served as a medic during the Gulf War.
Especially alert to anyone who exhibits even the mildest symptoms of sea-sickness, Christian is available 24-hours for emergencies – and in spite of the crew constantly wrestling with heavy equipment on a rocking deck, we’ve only experienced a few minor bumps and bruises. He has regular office hours every day, and is constantly on the move around the ship when not on duty there.
Besides keeping us healthy, he helps keep the ship humming by testing the drinking water supply (The Brown desalinates seawater when underway, but takes on local water while in port); surveys all departments for safety issues; and with the Captain, has the final word if-or-when a cruise is to be terminated if there is a medical emergency.
Since a stormpounding the Midwest will head out to sea and cross our path when we head north to Charleston, he is reminding everyone that remedies for sea sickness are always available at his office door, and thanks to NASA and the space program, if the motion sickness pills don’t work, he has available stronger medicine. So far we have been blessed with relatively calm weather and a resilient crew.
The warm (Red) Gulf Stream waters viewed from a satellite image.Contact: The edge of the Gulf Stream – Matthew Maury’s River in the Ocean
Birdwatching on the Ron Brown
For the time being I take advantage of the calm seas to scrutinize what’s under the microscope, and when on break, look for seabirds. East of the Bahamas, as anticipated after consulting ornithologist Poul Jespersen’s map of Atlantic bird sightings, I only spotted two birds over a two-week stretch at sea (storm petrels). This is very much in contrast to the dozens of species and hundreds of seabirds spotted in the rich waters of the Humboldt Current off of Chile , where I joined the Brown in 2008.
(http://ux.brookdalecc.edu/staff/Web%2012-2-04/seabirds/Brown%20terns%202/Terns%20%20fixed/SEPacific.html)
Passing through Bahamian waters was no more rewarding, but now that we are west and in the Florida Straits there are several species of gulls during the day, and at night more storm petrels startled by the ship’s lights. One windy night a large disoriented bird (Shearwater?) suddenly fluttered out of the dark and brushed my head before bumping a deck light and careening back out into the darkness. Throughout the day a cohort of terns has taken up watch on the forward mast of the Brown and noisily, they juggle for the best positions at the bow – resting until the ship flushes a school of flying fishes, and then swooping down across the water trying and snatch one in mid-air. Like most fishermen, they are successful only about 10% of the time.
Caspian tern “on station” at the jack mast.Royal tern “on station” at the jack mast.
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Despite the dreary forecast from the Captain, Wes and I are enthusiastic about all we have done on the cruise and formulated a list of why NOAA’s Teacher At Sea program is so rewarding.
Top Ten Reasons:
Why be a Teacher At Sea?
10. Fun and excitement exploring the oceans!
9. Meeting dedicated and diligent scientists and crew from around the world!
8. Bragging rights in the Teachers’ Room – and endless anecdotes!
7. Cool NOAA t-shirts, pins and hats from the Ship’s Store!
6. Great meals, three times a day…and FREE laundry!
5. Amazing sunsets, sunrises and star-watches!
4. Reporting on BIG science to students…and in real-time!
3. Outstanding and relevant knowledge brought back to students and colleagues!
2. First-hand experience that relates to your students’ career objectives!
1. Rewarding hours in the lab and field…remembering why you love science and sharing it with students!
NOAA Teacher at Sea Dave Grant Aboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown February 15 – March 5, 2012
Mission: Western Boundary Time Series Geographical Area: Sub-Tropical Atlantic, off the Coast of the Bahamas Date: February 22, 2012
Weather Data from the Bridge
Position:26.30 N – 75.42 W
Windspeed: 0
Wind Direction: Calm
Air Temperature: 29 C
Water Temperature: 24 C
Atm Pressure: 1025
Water Depth: 4,410 meters
Cloud Cover: 0
Cloud Type: Slight haze
Science/Technology Log:
We are becalmed and even the veteran sailors onboard are remarking on how flat the sea has become. At about 30 degrees North and South Latitude, moist, low pressure air that was heated and lifted from the surface at the Equator has cooled and is now plunging back down to Earth, forming a line of light winds in a band across the sea. This dry, high pressure air becomes the Trade winds as it is drawn back towards the Equator along the sea surface in what is called a Hadley Cell (After its discoverer). We seem to be on the edge of this meteorological milepost, which was more than a nuisance in the days of sail. If stranded in its pattern too long, food and especially drinking water became an issue, and the first to suffer would be animals being transported from the Old World to the New. Legend has it that subsequent voyagers would come across their carcasses…hence the name Horse Latitudes.
While observing ships returning to port near his home, sixteen year-old future rock star Jim Morrison (The DOORS) composed what is perhaps his most eerie ballot – Horse Latitudes.
“When the still sea conspires an armor And her sullen and aborted Currents breed tiny monsters True sailing is dead Awkward instant And the first animal is jettisoned Legs furiously pumping”
However, the stable ship makes deck work easier and I am catching up on samples under the microscope, including some of my own tiny “monsters” that the currents have bred.
“It is the astonishing variety of life that makes the sea such a fascinating
hunting ground. Get a tow-net, dredge and simple microscope,
and a new world is yours – a world of endless surprises.”
(Sir Alister Hardy)
The chief survey technician set me up with his flow-through seawater system and I can leave a net under it to continuously gather plankton. I have noticed some patterns already. One: Phytoplankton is scarce compared to temperate waters off of New Jersey, and this helps account for the clarity and
brilliant blue color of the water. The absence of large rivers here adding nutrients to the system, and little coastal
upwelling, means that there is little to fertilize plantlife. Two: More accumulates in the nets at night, confirming that Zooplankton rises to the surface at in the dark. This diurnal
pattern of the plankton community has been well documented ever since biologists and fishermen went to sea. Three: Also, there is much more plankton at the surface than in deeper water. This is no surprise since sunlight is the
key ingredient at the surface of this ocean ecosystem. Four: Creatures from offshore tend to have a more feathery look about them than inshore species. This added surface
area may use the turbulence to help support them near the surface and increase their buoyancy.
It is said: “Turn off the sun, and the oceans will starve to death in a week.” It is assumed that among other stresses on the Biosphere that accompany disastrous impacts of large asteroids, dust and ash from these rare collisions block out enough sunlight to stifle photosynthesis, causing Phytoplankton (The “Pasture of the Sea”) to waste away, and setting the stage for the collapse of the Food Chain and mass extinction events. Fortunately we have plenty of brilliant sunshine here and no celestial catastrophes on the horizon.
Some of the most interesting Zooplankton are the Pteropods, the Sea Butterflies.
Empty shell and live pteropod specimen
(Images on the Ron Brown by Dave Grant)
The renowned oceanographer Alister Hardy used them as indicators of different water masses flowing around the British Isles; and New England’s great oceanographer, Alfred Redfield correlated their drifting with the anti-clockwise circulation of water in the Gulf of Maine. Although most are small and less than an inch long, they feed on a variety of creatures and in turn become food for many others. In surface waters they gather phytoplankton, some utilizing cilia and mucus to sweep food to the mouth; but in deeper waters, others are carnivorous.
I am informed by our English colleagues that on Europe’s fishing grounds, they are sometimes fed upon by herring, cod and haddock; which is bad news for British fishermen, whose catch rapidly decays and is not marketable. Such fish are referred to as “black gut” or “stinkers.”
How concentrated are pteropods? Whales and seabirds that we hope to encounter later in the cruise are sustained by them, and in the warmer waters of the Atlantic, at relatively shallow depths and on the tops of submerged peaks at around 2,000 meters, R.S. Wimpenny reports considerable deposits of “pteropod ooze” from their descending shells, covering an estimated 1,500,000 square kilometers of the bottom of the Atlantic (An area the size of the Gulf of Mexico.). Like the Foraminifera, in deeper waters the aragonite in their shells (a more soluble form of calcium carbonate) dissolves, and other sediments like silicates from diatoms accumulate instead. Check out any oceanography text and you are likely to find a picture of this biogenic pteropod mud, as well as other types of deposits.
At least 90% of the animals in the ocean are meroplankton – spending time in this itinerant stage before becoming adults. This phase may vary from a few days to over a year, depending on the creature. (European eels larva are the long distance champions; for over a year, drifting from below us in their Sargasso Sea breeding grounds, all the way to rivers in Britain and France.)
Drifting larvae are cheap insurance for a species, filling the surrounding habitat with individuals of your own kind, settling in new areas and expanding ranges, and particularly, not lingering around their birthplace and competing with the parent stock. However, most individuals simply end up as food for other creatures that are higher on the food chain.
Not surprising, there are copepods, the “cattle of the sea” grazing on smaller organisms.
(Images on the Ron Brown by Dave Grant)
Calanus finmarchicus is sometimes called the most abundant animal in the world and is found throughout the oceans, sustaining many types of marinelife; even right whales and basking sharks off the coast of New England.
Other sea soup and children of the sea that author David Bulloch likes to call them, drift by me and swim circuits trapped by surface tension in the water drop under the microscope.
Radiolaria are single cell Protozoa that not only ensnare food with mucous, but harbor mutualistic algae
among their spines. (100 x’s)
More live pelagic snails. (Pteropod means winged foot.)
An empty shell with copepod sheltered inside. Other skeletons filled with Paramecia, and a mixed sample of shells
and dust particles. (Images on the Ron Brown by Dave Grant)
Now that is calm, everyone seems to have their sea legs and are comfortable talking about their bouts of mal de mer.
Here is the worst story about sea sickness I have come across:
From Dave Grant’s collection of sea stories: The world’s worst tale of seasickness. As told by Ulysses S. Grant in his Memoirs
One amusing circumstance occurred while we were lying at anchor in Panama Bay. In the regiment there was a Lieutenant Slaughter who was very liable to seasickness. It almost made him sick to see the wave of a table-cloth when the servants were spreading it. Soon after his graduation [from West Point] Slaughter was ordered to California and took passage by a sailing vessel going around Cape Horn. The vessel was seven months making the voyage, and Slaughter was sick every moment of the time, never more so than while lying at anchor after reaching his place of destination. On landing in California he found orders that had come by way of the Isthmus [Panama], notifying him of a mistake in his assignment; he should have been ordered to the northern lakes. He started back by the Isthmus route and was sick all the way. But when he arrived back East he was again ordered to California, this time definitely, and at this date was making his third trip. He was sick as ever, and had been so for more than a month while lying at anchor in the bay. I remember him well, seated with his elbows on the table in front of him, his chin between his hands, and looking the picture of despair. At last he broke out, “I wish I had taken my father’s advice; he wanted me to go into the navy; if I had done so, I should not have had to go to sea so much.”
Poor Slaughter! It was his last sea voyage. He was killed by Indians in Oregon.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Dave Grant Aboard NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown February 15 – March 5, 2012
Mission: Western Boundary Time Series Geographical Area: Sub-Tropical Atlantic, off the Coast of the Bahamas Date: February 17, 2012
Weather Data from the Bridge
Position: Windspeed: 15 knots
Wind Direction: South/Southeast
Air Temperature: 23.9 deg C/75 deg F
Water Temperature: 24.5 deg C/76 deg F
Atm Pressure: 1016.23 mb
Water Depth: 4625 meters/15,174 feet
Cloud Cover: less than 20%
Cloud Type: Cumulus
Science/Technology Log
Sailors used to describe their trips as short-haul or coastal, or “long seas” which also was described as going “Blue Water”
We are off to a great start after passing the harbor lighthouse and breakwater, and the seas are calm and winds gentle. The Low Country and barrier islands of South Carolina disappear quickly over the horizon, and the most striking change for me is the color of the water. As we have transited from the sediment rich waters upriver, to the estuary, and out to the ocean, its color has gone from grayish, to green to blue.
Bay/Estuary water in Charleston
Gulf Stream water
As a rapid indicator of what’s going on within it biologically, oceanographers use the color of the water. To quantify their observations for other scientist to compare results, a white secchi disc is lowered just below the surface and the observer compares the ocean’s color with tinted water in a series of small vials – the Forel-Ule Scale. (Francois Forel was an oceanographer and his end of the scale is the bluest; and Willi Ule was a limnologist and his end of the scale is darker, reflecting the fresh waters he studied.) The 21 colors run the gambit of colors found in natural waters and modified by the plankton community and range from brownish-to-green-to-blue. This gives you a quick measure of productivity of the waters and the types of phytoplankton predominating. For example: Diatom blooms are brownish and Dinoflagellate blooms form the notorious red tides. Clear, less productive waters look blue, and we are sailing into waters that are a deeper blue with every league we sail.
I lack a secchi disk and we can’t stop the ship to lower one anyway, so I am using instead a scupper on the side as a photographic frame to document this well-studied and interesting phenomenon.
“Being on a boat that’s moving through the water, it’s so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what’s important, and what’s not.”
(James Taylor)
Before departing on the trip I came across Richard Pough’s bird map of the Atlantic. On it he divides the ocean into 10-degree quadrants and indicates the average water temperature and number of birds he sighted daily. The good news is we are heading southeast into warmer waters. The bad news is, he does not indicate a very productive hunting ground for bird watching. For example, Cape Hatteras, NC, where the Gulf Stream skirts North Carolina, shows 40 birds. Off the highly productive sub-polar regions like Iceland where there are great breeding colonies of seabirds like gannets, he indicates scores of birds. Regardless, I am hopeful we will find some true seabirds to photograph on our voyage; and perhaps have some migrating songbirds drop in for a rest.
Gulf Stream sunset
Today, as our colleague Wes Struble discusses on his blog, we retrieved our first samples with the CTD rosette. Water is retrieved from predetermined levels between the surface and 4,500 meters sealed in bottles for salinity and dissolved oxygen analysis. These two physical features, along with temperature, are the benchmarks physical oceanographers rely upon to track the ocean circulation.
For an understanding of this process and an overview of the project, I met with Molly Baringer in her office – a large bench that the ship’s carpenter built on deck. It seats three and is similar to a lifeguard stand, so it can give a view of the water and fit over the [dis]array of equipment constantly being shifted around the fantail by various scientists and deck hands. With the calm seas and sunny weather, it is the perfect spot on the ship to sit with a laptop to outline daily assignments for all of us, review the mass of data streaming in, and relax to watch the sunset.
“When I am playful, I use the meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude for a seine,
and drag the Atlantic Ocean for whales!”
Mark Twain
Scientists and crew prepare to retrieve a mooring before the next big wave!
Chief scientist Dr. Baringer is a physical oceanographer and so is interested less in the creatures moving around in the ocean and more about the water currents that are moving them around, and particularly the vast amount of heat that is transferred from the Equator to the Polar Regions by “rivers in the sea” like the Gulf Stream.
Currents and storms in our atmosphere produce our daily weather patterns, which of course change seasonally too. Ocean currents work on a much longer time scale and the text book example of the turnover time of warm water moving Pole-ward, cooling and returning to the Tropics as “centuries.” This timeframe infers that dramatic fluctuations in climate do not occur.
However, by analyzing ice cores from Greenland, scientists recently have detected evidence of abrupt changes in climate – particularly a significant cooling event 8,200 years ago – that could be associated with vacillations in the Gulf Stream. Although lacking a blackboard at her impromptu lecture hall on deck, a patient Dr. Baringer was artful in walking me through a semester of climatology and modeling to highlight the implications of an oscillating Gulf Stream and its deepwater return waters – the Deep Western Boundary Current.
Surface water is driven from the southern latitudes towards the Poles along the western side of the Atlantic, constantly deflected in a clockwise pattern by the Earth’s rotation. Bathing Iceland with warm and saltier water and keeping it unusually mild for its sub-polar latitude, the Gulf Stream divides here with some water flowing into the Arctic Sea and the rest swirling down the Eastern Atlantic moderating the climate in Great Britain, France and Portugal. (This explains the presence of a rugged little palm tree that I once saw growing in a Scottish garden.)
Perturbations in the northward flow of heat by meanderings of the Gulf Stream or the smothering of it of it by lighter fresh waters from melting ice in Greenland and Canada appears play a significant role in occasionally upsetting Europe’s relatively mild and stable climate – which is bad enough. What is more alarming is new evidence that these changes don’t necessarily occur gradually over centuries as once assumed, but can take place rapidly, perhaps over decades.
There is more bad news. The surface of the sea is dynamic and even without wind and waves, there are gentle hills and valleys between areas. I remember my surprise when our physical oceanography teacher, Richard Hires, pointed out that because of warmer water and displacement by the Earth’s rotation, Gulf Stream waters are about a meter higher than the surrounding ocean…that to sail East into it from New Jersey, we are actually going uphill. If these giant boundary currents are suppressed in their movements, it will exasperate an ongoing coastal problem as those hills and valleys of water flatten, resulting in rising sea levels and erosion along northern coastlines.
This explains why we are “line sailing” at 26.5 North, sampling water and monitoring sensors arrayed on the parallel of latitude between Africa and the Bahamas. To measure change, it is necessary to have baseline data, and the stretch of the Atlantic is the best place to collect it.
Snap shots of the water column are taken using the CTD apparatus as we sail an East-West transect, but at $30-50,000. Per day for vessel time, this is not practical or affordable. Here is where moorings, data recorders and long-life Lithium batteries come into play. By anchoring a line of sensors in strategic locations and at critical depths to take hourly readings, year-long data sets can be recorded and retrieved periodically. Not only does this save time and money, it is the only way to generate the ocean of data for researchers to analyze and create a model of what is happening over such a vast region – and what may occur in the future.
For more specific details, check out the project overview.
Deep Western Boundary Current Transport Time Series to study:
-the dynamics and variability of ocean currents;
-the redistribution of heat, salt and momentum through the oceans;
-the interactions between oceans, climate, and coastal environments; and
-the influence of climate changes and of the ocean on extreme weather events.
Information at: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/wbts/ies/index.php
We hear that “The package is on deck” and it is time to collect water samples from the 24 different depths the Niskin bottles were fired (Remotely closed). As any aquarist will assure you, as soon as seawater is contained it begins to change, so we always start with the bottom water and work around to the top water since dissolved oxygen levels can drop with rising temperatures and biological activity from planktonic creatures trapped along with the water samples.
Although as oceanography students we read that most ocean water is quite cold (~3.5C) because only the top 100 meters soaks up the warmth from sunlight, it is still an awakening for me to fill the sample bottles with even colder bottom water. After a half hour of rinsing and filling bottles, my hands are reminded of the times I worked in an ice cream parlor restocking containers from the freezer and filling soft-serve cones. It is a delight to get to the last several bottles of warm (25C) surface water.
Once the DO and salinity bottles are filled, they are removed to the chemistry lab and the Niskins are all mine. By holding a small plankton net under them as they drain excess water, I try my luck at catching whatever has almost settled to the bottom. There is an extra bonus too. A patch of floating Sargassum weed that tangled in the rosette was retrieved by the technician and set aside for me to inspect.
Windrows of Sargassum weed drift past the Ron Brown
Here is what I found under the microscope so far:
From depth:
The bottom water is absolutely clear with no obvious life forms swimming around. However a magnification of 50x’s and the extra zoom of my handy digital camera set-up reveals a number of things of interest I am sorting into AB&C’s: Abiotic: Specks of clear mineral crystals. Are these minute sediments washed from the mainland or nearby Caribbean islands? Or is it possible they are quartz grains carried from much greater distances, like the Saharan dust that satellite images have proven are swept up by desert winds and carried all the way across the Atlantic?
Biotic: Although I can not find anything living, the silica dioxide skeletons (frustules) of at least two species of diatoms are present. These fragile fragments of glass accumulate in deep sediments below highly productive zones in the sea and different species are useful to paleontologists for determining the age of those deposits. On land, fossil diatom deposits are mined for diatomaceous earth – used as an abrasive and cleaner, pool filter material, and even in nanotechnologyresearch applications. There is other detrital material in the samples, but nothing identifiable.
Celestial(?): One tiny round particle caught my attention under the microscope. It looks like the images I’ve seen of microtektites – glassy and metallic meteor particles that have been molded by the heat of entry into the atmosphere. The Draxler brothers, two science students in Massachusetts, collect them and I hope they will confirm my identification when I see them again.
Dust particle (Right) and foraminifera (Center)
From the surface:
The warm, sunlit surface water here is covered with Sargassum weed, a curious algae that sustains an entire ecosystem in the waters mariners named the Sargasso Sea. On board the Brown it is simply called “weed” in part because it can be a minor nuisance when entangled with equipment. The Sargassum’s air bladders that support it at the surface reminded Portuguese sailors of their sargazagrapes and they named the gulfweed after them.
Can you spot the two Sargassum shrimp next to the air bladder?
Floating Sargassum weed harbors a great variety of other creatures including baby sea turtles, crustaceans and especially bryozoan colonies. The film of life encrusting the weed is sometimes called aufwuchs by scientists and is a combined garden and zoo.
A quick rinse in a plastic bag revealed two species of bryozoan and numerous tiny crustaceans. The Phylum Bryozoa is the “moss animals” a puzzling colonial creature to early biologists. Bryozoans are an ancient group with a long fossil record and are used by paleontologists as an “index” species to date sediments.
Byozoan colony
To my delight there were also some foraminifera in the samples. “Forams” as they are called by researchers, are single celled protozoa with calcium carbonate skeletons. They are abundant and widespread in the sea; having had 330 million years to adjust to different habitats – drifting on the surface in the plankton community and on benthic habitats on the bottom.
It is not necessary for you to go to sea with a microscope to find them. I have seen their skeletons imbedded in the exterior walls of government buildings in Washington, DC; and our own lab building at Sandy Hook, NJ has window sills cut from Indiana limestone – formed at the bottom of the warm Mesozoic seas that once covered the Midwest. In the stone, a magnifying glass reveals pin-head sized forams cemented among a sea of Bryozoan fragments. Some living forams from tropical lagoons are large enough to be seen without a magnifier, and are among the largest single-celled creatures on the planet. With a drop of acid (The acid test!) our Geology students confirm that our window sills are indeed made of limestone as the drops fizzing reaction releases carbon dioxide sequestered when the animal shell formed.
Living foraminifera eat algae, bacteria and detritus and are fed upon by fishes, crustaceans and mollusks. Dead forams make contributions to us by carrying the carbon in their skeletons to the bottom where it is sequestered for long geological periods.
Geologists also use different species of forams as “index” species to fix the date of strata in sediment cores and rocks. The appearance and demise of their different fossil assemblages leave a systematic record of stability and change in the environment; and paleoclimatologists use the ratios of Carbon and Oxygen isotopes in their skeletons document past temperature ranges.
Our first plankton samples extracted from the deepest samples retrieved from the Niskin bottles at 4,000 meters (2.5C) did not produce any forams. This may be because in deep, cold water, calcium carbonate is more soluble and the skeletons dissolve. Presumably why we identified only the glassy tests of diatoms.
Foraminifera shell at 100x’s
Tiny Paramecia swarm over the detritus in my slide and taking a closer look at that and the growth associated with the weed I am reminded of Jonathon Swifts jingle:
Big fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite ’em And little fleas have lesser fleas And so, ad infinitum
Sunset over the Sargassum Sea
The Chief Scientist:
A day in the life of our chief scientist involves: checking with her staff to evaluate the previous day’s collections, consulting with visiting scientists on their needs and any problems that might arise, checking with the deck hands and technicians about equipment needs and repairs, advising the ship’s officers of any issues, and making certain we are on course and schedule for the next station.
And then rest? Hardly!
Even when off duty there are inquiries to field from staff, scientists and crew; equipment repairs to be made; and software that needs to be tweaked to keep the data flowing.
How does one prepare for a career like this? Physically: the capacity to function on little sleep so you can work 12-hour shifts and be on-call the other twelve. (And there is little escape at mealtimes either, where the conversation never stays far from the progress of the cruise.)Mentally: the capability to multi-task with a variety of very different chores. Emotionally: the flexibility to accommodate people with many different personalities and needs, while staying focused on your own work.
Also, excellent organizational skills, since months of planning and preparation are crucial.
And perhaps most importantly, a sense of humor!
“Lock-and-Load!
Midnight shift.
Chief Scientist Dr. Molly Baringer prepares to fire the XBT
off the stern for an 800 meter profile of temperature and pressure.
NOAA Teacher at Sea Elizabeth Bullock Aboard R/V Walton Smith December 11-15, 2011
Introduction
Hello! My name is Elizabeth (Liz) Bullock and I work for the NOAA Teacher at Sea Program (TAS). Before I worked at NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) I was in graduate school at Clark University in Worcester, MA studying Environmental Science and Policy. As my final project, I created an environmental curriculum for the Global Youth Leadership Institute (GYLI). Through this experience, I realized how much I love both science and educating others about the importance of the natural world.
What will we be studying? The scientists on this survey are very interested in knowing about the strength and health of the ecosystem. They can judge how strong it is by looking at various indicators such as water clarity, salinity, and temperature. They can also record information about the phytoplankton and zooplankton that live in the water.
Question for students: Why do you think it is important to learn about the phytoplankton and zooplankton? What can they tell us about the ecosystem? Please leave a reply with your answers below by clicking on “Comments.”
Here is a map of the route the R/V Walton Smith will be taking.
The R/V Walton Smith will be leaving Miami, FL and traveling around the Florida Keys into the Gulf of Mexico.
I am so excited and I hope you will follow along with me on this journey of a lifetime!
Leg 1 has concluded. Oscar Dyson is currently at port in Dutch Harbor. Please use link (NOAA Ship locator) to follow ship in future research cruises and current location/conditions.
Science and Technology Log
I am back home and my expedition aboard the Oscar Dyson has come to a conclusion. My travels home had me leaving Dutch Harbor at 7:30 PM and arriving into Newark, NJ the following day at 2:30 pm EST, an incredibly long, red-eye flight back home. Although my involvement aboard the ship has come and gone, the ship is currently in port at Dutch Harbor taking on more fuel and supplies and readying to do a “turnaround trip”. For Leg II they will be heading back out into the Bering Sea to obtain further data. The following is a map that depicts the stations for Leg 1 and 2. For Leg 1, all of the green stations (40#) represents the areas where we conducted our research. For Leg II, they will be focusing on the black circle stations. When all of this field work is complete, and the numbers are “crunched” they can be extrapolated out to get a better idea of the overall health of the Bering Sea ecosystem as detailed in prior blogs.
BASIS 2011 Station Grid
So, before I left Alaska, I was discussing a bloom and readying the blog platform for a discussion of zooplankton and other higher-ordered interactions of the Bering. Ok, so moving on…the next feeding level in the marine world would be the primary consumers….the zooplankton. Zooplankton, although a very simplified explanation, are essentially animals that drift (planktonic) while consuming phytoplankton (for the most part). These zooplankton in turn, are a resource for consumers on higher trophic levels such as the Pacific Cod, salmon, and Walleye Pollock (which are a primary focus on this survey). Zooplankton are typically small and in order to obtain samples from the sea, we have been utilizing specialized nets (information and pictures to follow) to extract, analyze and collect them for further investigations back at the lab.
The following picture is a good visual to represent this flow of energy that we have been discussing since the first Blog Entry. An important observation is that the sun is the “engine” that initiates all of these interactions. The exchange of carbon dioxide compliments of Photosynthesis and respiration, the abundance of phytoplankton in the photic zone (see last blog entry), which are food for the zooplankton, which in turn, become food for higher-order carnivores.
Marine Food Chain
One of the more important zooplankton species out in the Bering are the euphasiids. These are small invertebrates found in all of worlds oceans. The common name is Krill. These species are considered a huge part of the trophic level connection, feeding on the phytoplankton and converting this energy into a form suitable for the larger animals. In the last blog, I put in some pictures of euphasiids that we caught. These euphasiids have a very high lipid content (fat) and in turn, are what is responsible for getting salmon their richness in oily flesh, the Omega Fatty acids, and there natural, pink-fleshed color. I have read before about the differences between farm-raised vs. wild salmon from a nutritional standpoint. Farm-raised salmon often lack the abundant Omega oils that are found in the wild species. Also, it is true that in order for the farm-raised salmon to get their pinkish color to the flesh, they are fed a nutritional supplement to give the color….essentially, like adding a food dye. So, in class this year, we will have to be very careful when analyzing the pros and cons of aquaculture/fish-farming.
Personal Log
Although my official involvement with the Oscar Dyson has come to an end, I will take with me the experiences and knowledge for a lifetime. It was everything I was hoping it would be and then so much more. These blogs, the pictures, the video…… all do the expedition no justice. However, I have pledged to make every effort possible to spread the word about NOAA and its mission and this is exactly what I will do. I have several more decades of career in front of me and I know that between now and that date, I will use this recent expedition countless times and will hopefully convince the general public about the overall importance of government agencies like NOAA and how common resources must be valued and protected to ensure the health of all of Earth’s inhabitants.
There are so many people who I would like to thank for providing and delivering such an extraordinary experience. All of the crew aboard the Oscar Dyson, from the engineers, to the chef, and captain……Thank You. Your professionalism and ability were truly inspiring.
To the Scientists, You were really the “teachers at sea”. May you always continue your motivated path to revealing the beautiful secrets this planet has to offer. Also, my hope that it continues to be done in a fashion that I saw while during my time on the water…..In a professional, unbiased, non-political fashion. You have reassured my passion for the sciences and have given me fuel to disprove any “non-believers” who claim that the sciences have become corrupted. In the end, you have shown me the most universal and balanced approach at reaching the truth.
