Research

Project Institutution: Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT) is a National Science Supporting Agency similar to NSF in United States but for México.

Conduct CalCOFI surveys off Southern California quarterly, two of these on UNOLS ships.

Upwelling regions are some of the most productive ocean ecosystems. The study region of the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER is the southern sector of the California Current System (CCS), a major upwelling biome where the 67-year California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program provides essential information characterizing both natural climate variability and progressive changes. The CCE site spans a biogeographic boundary region, hence is an early sentinel of climate change; shows low frequency variations that are correlated with much of the North Pacific; is the preferred spawning site for most of the epipelagic fish biomass in the CCS; exhibits a broad gradient of ocean conditions over a short geographic distance; encompasses an undisturbed, layered sedimentary record of the past two millennia; and has well-developed models. The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER program addresses two over-arching questions: What are the mechanisms leading to different ecosystem states in a coastal pelagic ecosystem? What is the interplay between changing ocean climate, community structure, and ecosystem dynamics? This program will develop a new quantitative basis for forecasting the effects of climate perturbations on the management of key living marine resources, including numerous fishes, invertebrates, marine mammals, and seabirds. The study region also affects CO2 exchange and carbon sequestration, as well as human recreation, navigation, and the livelihoods of large numbers of U.S. residents. The site encompasses a National Marine Sanctuary and constitutes major spawning habitat for most of the epipelagic fish biomass in the CCS. This research will involve extensive training of graduate students, undergraduate REU's, and will create teacher opportunities. Public programs and outreach efforts will be expanded in collaboration with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps, to increase public awareness and understanding of climate effects on coastal pelagic communities, to connect the public

Marine atmospheric Boundary Layer (MABL) Sensing and Prediction

Terrestrial organic matter (OM) concentrations have been increasing in coastal waters, such as the Gulf of Maine (GoM), over the past 30 years. The implications of this change on critical mechanisms controlling the levels of mercury (Hg), and its toxic form, methylmercury (MeHg), in marine waters and at the base of the food web, are not well understood. Given this lack of knowledge, this proposal will examine the effects of climate-driven increases in terrestrial OM concentrations in GoM waters on the complex and often competing processes influencing: 1) Hg cycling and distribution; 2) the formation of MeHg; and 3) MeHg uptake to microplankton. Our central hypothesis is that higher terrestrial OM inputs and concomitant shifts in coastal OM concentration and quality will cause increases in Hg inputs, MeHg production and bioaccumulation. Terrestrial OM is thought to be a conduit for transfer of Hg from watersheds to coastal and offshore waters and controls the formation of aqueous MeHg by providing a microenvironment that supports bacterial Hg methylation. Increasing dissolved OM concentrations have been associated with decreased bioaccumulation of MeHg into phytoplankton, the primary bioaccumulation step for uptake of MeHg into seafood. However, our preliminary results show this association is mediated by OM source more than concentration, as indicated by the sulfur content of the OM. Furthermore, mixotrophic microplankton can bioaccumulate MeHg complexed with OM while feeding heterotrophically. Mixotrophs can seasonally dominate phytoplantkon assemblages in coastal waters, and the impact of heterotrophic feeding modes on MeHg uptake at the base of the food web has not been explored. This proposal is focused on studying the effects of OM dynamics on Hg and MeHg cycling and bioaccumulation through 1) field surveys and shipboard experiments in the GOM, where significant increases in terrestrially-sourced OM have caused a “yellowing” effect, and 2) through laboratory microcosm experiments using autotrophic and mixotrophic microplankton taxa under contrasting carbon acquisition modes and OM characteristics and concentrations. This work builds on our prior and ongoing work studying Hg cycling and bioaccumulation in estuarine environments along the Northeastern U.S. and will apply novel Hg and MeHg-specific isotopic analyses and measures of OM quality to enhance understanding. This research will fill important gaps in predicting the effects of environmental perturbations on marine MeHg levels, providing critical information to mitigating Hg emissions and MeHg exposures.

The Southeast Area Monitoring and Assessment Program (SEAMAP) Shrimp/Groundfish trawl surveys are conducted throughout the Gulf of Mexico to provide fishery-independent monitoring and assessment information on shrimp and groundfish assemblages associated with low relief soft-bottom habitats. These data are essential to the management of the fisheries resources in the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), as well as SEAMAP state partners, sample in conjunction with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to provide a Gulf-wide trawl survey each summer and fall.

As Earth's climate has warmed over the past few decades, our planet has experienced many changes. Nowhere have the changes been more pronounced, nor happened as quickly, as in the Arctic Ocean. Pack-ice is melting, water is warming, storms are becoming stronger and more frequent, and basic circulation patterns are being altered. Our project focuses on the fate of the Pacific water that enters the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait. Pacific water plays a critical role in the western Arctic ecosystem. In wintertime, the cold inflowing water provides food for phytoplankton at the base of the food chain. In summertime, the warm water melts pack ice and provides freshwater to the Arctic Ocean. After the water crosses the Chukchi Sea, north of Bering Strait, some of it forms a narrow current that flows eastward along the edge of the Beaufort Sea. As part of our project we will continue to maintain a mooring positioned in the center of the current to measure its physical and biological properties. The mooring has been deployed (with a few gaps) since 2002, and during this time it has measured striking changes that need to be placed in the context of the evolving Arctic system. In addition, we will carry out shipboard surveys of the current and adjacent waters when we service the mooring, to provide a larger-scale view of the fate of the Pacific water. Past data have been widely used by the oceanographic community - in both observational and modeling studies -and are included in the annual Arctic Report Card. One graduate student will be supported on the project. The monitoring mooring is situated at 152 degrees W near the Beaufort Sea shelfbreak, roughly 150 km downstream of Pt. Barrow, AK. It will be deployed from fall 2018 to fall 2022 (in two 2-year installments). This will extend the timeseries at this location to 17 years. The mooring records the velocity of the water column and pack ice using two acoustic Doppler current profilers (ADCPs), and measures temperature, salinity, and pressure using a series of sensors spaced along the wire. Chlorophyll fluorescence and nitrate will be measured at 35 m (at the top float of the mooring), and a passive acoustic recorder situated near the base of the mooring will record marine mammal calls. Zooplankton concentration will be estimated using the ADCP backscatter data. Among other things, this will allow us to determine how much water, heat, nutrients, chlorophyll, and freshwater are transported by the current, and, importantly, assess how much exchange occurs between the interior of the Arctic Ocean and the boundary waters. Upwelling occurs during all seasons along the Beaufort slope, and it appears to be increasing as the climate warms. The mooring is ideally suited to quantify the upwelling, as well as any downwelling that occurs. The shipboard sampling will include occupations of some of the Distributed Biological Observatory transects, which will contribute to that long-term study.

Our modeling and experimental research program aims to improve the capability of data-assimilative ocean models to predict acoustic propagation in dynamic oceanographic environments, while forming a better understanding of the true uncertainty attached to these forecasts. Our study includes real-time testing and comparison of several novel and diverse data assimilation and adaptive sampling techniques that minimize acoustic uncertainty. We will contrast starkly different ocean data-assimilation approaches – the use of coordinated teams of gliders and the most advanced algorithms on land vs. onboard algorithms paired with fresh data from sensors on the vehicle. Simultaneously we will collect a paired acoustic and oceanographic data set that will be ideally suited to evaluate and compare novel state estimation and machine learning approaches both on land and at sea for many years of future research.

This is a class cruise to introduce graduate students in SIOB280 Biological Oceanography to sampling and organisms at sea. We will conduct CTD profiles, plankton net hauls, and an otter trawl, during two one-day cruises. The data will be used in class projects and exams.

Annual survey using trawling and hydroacoustics to survey the health of the fisheries in Minnesota waters of Lake Superior

We request use of a UNOLS Research Vessel for a NOAA-funded research project to investigate ocean acidification of the northwestern Gulf of Mexico near the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary. The 2022 XR03 Cruise is a NOAA funded cruise. The cruise is the third of three cruises scheduled aboard the RV Pelican in (two conducted in 2021). The project lead is Xinping Hu (TAMUCC); SF DiMarco (TAMU/GERG) is ship-board and autonomous vehicles operations lead and will serve as Chief Scientist. Funding is provided thru the NOAA OAR OAP.

UW Oceanography Dept. Ocean 492 Research Apprentices Student Cruise for Fall Quarter 2022.

Upwelling regions are some of the most productive ocean ecosystems. The study region of the California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER is the southern sector of the California Current System (CCS), a major upwelling biome where the 67-year California Cooperative Fisheries Investigations (CalCOFI) program provides essential information characterizing both natural climate variability and progressive changes. The CCE site spans a biogeographic boundary region, hence is an early sentinel of climate change; shows low frequency variations that are correlated with much of the North Pacific; is the preferred spawning site for most of the epipelagic fish biomass in the CCS; exhibits a broad gradient of ocean conditions over a short geographic distance; encompasses an undisturbed, layered sedimentary record of the past two millennia; and has well-developed models. The California Current Ecosystem (CCE) LTER program addresses two over-arching questions: What are the mechanisms leading to different ecosystem states in a coastal pelagic ecosystem? What is the interplay between changing ocean climate, community structure, and ecosystem dynamics? This program will develop a new quantitative basis for forecasting the effects of climate perturbations on the management of key living marine resources, including numerous fishes, invertebrates, marine mammals, and seabirds. The study region also affects CO2 exchange and carbon sequestration, as well as human recreation, navigation, and the livelihoods of large numbers of U.S. residents. The site encompasses a National Marine Sanctuary and constitutes major spawning habitat for most of the epipelagic fish biomass in the CCS. This research will involve extensive training of graduate students, undergraduate REU's, and will create teacher opportunities. Public programs and outreach efforts will be expanded in collaboration with the Birch Aquarium at Scripps, to increase public awareness and understanding of climate effects on coastal pelagic communities, to connect the public

The Rhode Island Teachers at Sea program is designed to bring K-12 teachers in Rhode Island to sea in order to show them how we approach oceanographic questions. After the cruise, members of the GSO Office of Marine Programs works with the teachers to help them build this information into their curricula. In an effort to maximize ship time, any open berths after accommodating the teachers is used to support junior faculty, post-docs or graduate students wishing to test equipment, collect preliminary data etc. Routine oceanographic equipment is deployed at two stations, a shallow inshore station and a deep station at the shelf break in order to compare and contrast the two sites.

These cruises utilize funding provided by the University of Minnesota. Chief Scientists will be completing seed research cruises or using their ship time to take graduate and undergraduate students on the research vessel Blue Heron.

Measurement of metocean parameters at Turritella

Dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in the ocean is part of the global carbon cycle. DOC interacts with the Earth's climate system through its connection to carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Keeping track of DOC requires the cooperation of many marine laboratories worldwide. Making sure that all of these laboratories are making accurate DOC measurements requires that each can access a standardized sample of seawater for which the DOC concentration is set by international agreement. This award funds the University of Miami to continue a consensus reference material (CRM) program that was first developed in 1998 in support of consistent, high quality measurements of dissolved organic carbon by the international ocean chemistry community. With continuation of this work, the US and international communities can make consistent measurements of a major marine carbon reservoir and advance society's ability to assess changes in the marine carbon cycle and the role of the ocean in climate change. With continued strong international efforts to investigate the marine carbon cycle, the existing CRM program provides the necessary benchmark for globally comparable marine DOC measurements. Water from the deep Florida Strait (approximately 42 umol/kg DOC) will be collected, placed in ampoules, and distributed to the US and international community. Over the time period of this program, approximately 228,000 vials of reference waters have been distributed to approximately 240 US and international laboratories in 43 nations, currently at a rate of about 23,000 vials/year. With continuation of the reference material program for a seventh 3-year period of support, distribution of deep ocean water containing biologically refractory dissolved organic carbon and low carbon reference water will continue to aid the analytical work of the community studying dissolved organic matter in the ocean. A website is maintained that provides direct and convenient links to a growing number of DOC data collected from the global ocean.

he photosynthetic microbes ? the phytoplankton ? generate about 50% of the oxygen and organic matter produced on Earth each year and serve as the base of marine food webs. Flow cytometers are essential oceanographic instruments that rapidly and accurately measure the abundance, size and fluorescent characteristics of individual phytoplankton cells. For example, flow cytometry led to the discovery of Prochloroccocus, the most abundant photosynthetic organism on Earth. However, thirty-seven years after the first description of a flow cytometer designed specifically for the measurement of phytoplankton in the field, the complexity of flow cytometry, and the multi-parametric data it produces continues to be an obstacle to its evolution towards common use as an oceanographic field instrument. PipeCyte is a miniature, low-power flow cytometer instrument that was designed to perform autonomous measurements of 0.5-10 µm diameter phytoplankton while deployed on autonomous oceanographic measurement platforms. In this first deployment project, the PipeCyte instrument will be immersed at depths of up to 100 meters while tethered to a surface buoy. A surface buoy is a low-cost platform that is simple to deploy from a research vessel. In this project, several buoy deployed PipeCyte instruments will be released in the open ocean to perform measurements of the phytoplankton community at multiple depths. These measurements will provide an unprecedented view of the relation between environmental features and phytoplankton communities along the water column.

This SME was created for the at-sea portion of the NSF Inspection 19 October 2022.

These cruises utilize funding provided by the University of Minnesota. Chief Scientists will be completing seed research cruises or using their ship time to take graduate and undergraduate students on the research vessel Blue Heron.

These cruises utilize funding provided by Minnesota SeaGrant to take secondary teachers out to learn about limnology.

Puget Sound, the largest estuary by volume in the continental United States, has recently been observed to host large fields of active methane venting from the seafloor. Although present throughout the Sound, the majority of gas emission sites are co-located over three major fault zones that fracture the entire forearc crust of the Cascadia Subduction Zone. Multibeam and single-beam sonar data from cruises conducted in years 2011, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 identified the acoustic signature of over 350 individual bubble plumes. Fluid samples from adjacent terrestrial hot springs and deep-water wells surrounding the estuary contain a helium-3 isotope signature, suggesting a deep fluid source arising from the underlying Cascadia Subduction Zone plate interface. However, limited data from our previous pilot study suggests that Puget Sound emission sites appear to lack similar helium isotope signatures expected from a deep plate-interface reservoir. As an alternative hypothesis, a shallow reservoir beneath the Holocene sediments that cover Puget Sound Eocene basement, with horizontal transfer to the thinly-sedimented Alki Point and Kingston Arch anticlines, is also possible. The origin of vigorous marine methane plumes arising from areas of thin sediment cover and associated with deeply-penetrating forearc fault zones but still presenting no thermal or chemical anomalies found in other similar forearc environments, remains an important unresolved scientific paradox. Here we propose a field sampling and monitoring program that would determine the environmental parameters responsible for the variability in the gas emissions, characterize the fluid and gas composition, and identify the sub-surface reservoir and pathways for the methane gas and vent fluid. This would allow us to better understand the role that the active fluid and gas flow play within deep regional fault zones that are a continuing seismic hazard for the urban population of the western United States.