OMZ 2022

The primary objective of this cruise is to survey the unique gradient zone into the ETNP OMZ in an efficient and comprehensive manner, optimizing coverage and utilizing transit time to maximize the amount of data via several student led projects. This ship time proposal fulfills the category of research by graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The science party is largely comprises SIO graduate students for whom data collection in this area will enable dissertation completion; additionally, berths have been reserved for an open call to additional student projects if funded. The transit time to and from the OMZ boundary will be utilized for phytoplankton imagery, cetacean and seabird surveys, and physical water mass analysis. Critically, winter in the ETNP hosts gray whale ( Eschrichtius robustus ) breeding and birthing en masse, allowing meaningful visual cetacean surveys. The transit will also serve physical oceanographers interested in the intersecting water masses which form the OMZ; shipboard ADCP will be used to measure velocity profiles to associate large-scale current features in the region, which includes the equatorial California Current and poleward California Undercurrent. Phytoplankton communities will also be continuously imaged through deployment of an Imaging Flow CytoBot (IFCB). If funded, the tangible outcomes of this cruise will include myriad dissertation chapters and publications discussed in the sections detailing the various projects below. Several participants are in the later stages of their PhD research, and need specific biological, physical, and chemical data from this extreme region in order to publish a chapter and begin their dissertations. Several other students are in their first or second years of PhD study or postdoctoral appointment, and are enthusiastic about learning how to work at sea while generating datasets from which to publish their first papers and inspire their proposals. These academic products will advance the careers of developing scientists while contributing to the limited body of work characterizing the expanding ETNP OMZ. This cruise is intentionally designed for early career scientists in diverse disciplines, fostering independence and creativity in designing and executing experiments in the field while providing a unique opportunity for cross-disciplinary work. Oxygen minimum zones are uniquely shaped by forces representing all fields of oceanography, and cruises surveying these areas are usually based in one of these fields, making data intercalibration impossible. In terms of broader impacts, this cruise will produce uniquely interdisciplinary comparable datasets which will provide new insights into the ETNP OMZ, while serving to train early career scientists and strengthen their networks outside of their disciplines.