OOI-Pioneer-2023-spring
CompletedPlanned route: 8 segments · ~3 days steaming · 7 stations
Operating area: Continental shelf and slope south of New England
Route: Charleston (South Carolina) - United States → Charleston (South Carolina) - United States
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Project aboard
Major infrastructure deployment and servicing cruise for the Pioneer Array of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The Pioneer Array includes a network of moorings and autonomous robotic vehicles to monitor waters of the continental shelf and slope south of New England and the shelf break front where nutrients and other properties are exchanged between the coast and the deep ocean. Data from the Pioneer Array will provide new insights into coastal ocean processes such as shelf/slope nutrient exchange, air-sea property exchange, carbon cycling, and ocean acidification that are important to the New England shelf, and to continental shelf ecosystems around the world. For further information, see http://www.oceanobservatories.org.
People aboard
- Al Plueddemann · Chief scientist
- Deidra Emrich · Principal investigator
Party size: 18
Estimated vacant berths: 16
Equipment
Aboard the vessel
- Dynamic Positioning (DP)
- Underway Seawater System
- Meteorological Data
- Echosounder, 12kHz
- ADCP/UHDAS – range < 80m (eg. 300kHz)
- ADCP/UHDAS – range 250-350m (e.g. 150kHz)
- ADCP/UHDAS – range 1000m-1200m (e.g. 38kHz)
- Multibeam - Deep Water (EM122, EM124)
- Biological multi-frequency echosounder - EK80
- Ultra-Short Base-Line Acoustic Navigation System
Pooled / portable
- CTD
- Winch Pool Portable Winch
Science party brings
- Portable Laboratory Vans/Containers - Science Supplied
- Science Supplied Portable Winch
- Science-provided vans ×4
Schedule data from UNOLS Marine Facilities Planning · operator cruise code AR71-04 · MFP reference 22/1497 · synced Sep 24, 2026
