Research

Systematic long-term (greater than a few decades in length) time-series observations of aquatic and terrestrial environments have led to a more comprehensive understanding of the natural ecosystem variability and have enabled an assessment of human impacts on ecosystem dynamics. Because of their ability to store and transport large amounts of heat and to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the world's oceans play a critical role in modulating environmental conditions for the sustained well-being of both land-based and marine organisms including humans. Despite their recognized scientific and societal importance, long-term records of key ocean processes are rare. In 1988, two ocean time-series programs were established: one in the North Atlantic near Bermuda and the other, the Hawaii Ocean Time-series (HOT) program, near Hawaii. For the past three decades, teams of scientists based at the University of Hawaii have made critical measurements of the 'state of our sea.' These long-term observations have established a baseline against which future states can be compared. The ship-based HOT program complements other diverse ocean observation programs including remote-sensing via satellites, moored buoys, profiling floats, and autonomous underwater vehicles. All HOT program data are publicly available and are frequently used by researchers and policy makers around the world.

This project will examine warming of the continental shelf of the northeast US and determine the relationship to warm core rings from the Gulf Stream. Historical observations from several sources including the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Pioneer Array will be analyzed to determine the connection between shelf warming and warm core rings. A field campaign will include observations from autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with sensors to observe the dynamic processes that govern the warm and saline intrusions of water. The results will yield insights into how and why warming events occur on the continental shelf. The trend in warming on the New England shelf has implications for regional climate and local commercial fisheries. The project includes collaboration with the Commercial Fisheries Association and communication of research results to local fishing communities. This project will use field observations and analyses of historical data to examine process known to drive exchange between the shelf and warm core rings on the Northeast U.S. continental shelf and the relationship to recent warming on the shelf and slope region. The study will focus on the pycnocline salinity maximum and Gulf Stream warm core rings. The field work, which will take place during two cruises (in 2020 and 2021) will employ autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) equipped with sensors to profile velocity, temperature, salinity, microstructure, turbidity, chlorophyll, fluorescence, and colored dissolved organic matter. The observations will be used to produce three-dimensional maps of one or more saline intrusions and to distinguish between the relative importance of double diffusive and turbulent dynamics in the pycnocline salinity maximum.

Previous generation SBP systems utilized a wide beam directed directly beneath the vessel. The wide beam results in diffractions clouding the sub-surface reflectors wherever there is seafloor topography, or an abrupt lateral change in seafloor or subsurface acoustic properties. Furthermore, the geometry of a downward directed beam means that the true specular return, with the seafloor or sub-surface of interest, if sloping at any angle or in any direction, cannot be obtained. Orange is working with Scripps on the acquisition, installation and testing of a new generation of Sub-Bottom Profiler (SBP), the SBP-29. The SBP will have a user-selected transmit beam angle, from approximately 20° forward to 20° aft. The transmit beam will have a user-selectable beam width as small as 3°. The system uses a second transducer array, oriented athwartship, to receive the SBP’s acoustic energy. Note that the receive array may be the same as the vessel’s multibeam system, with the signals separated by software for different processing. The SBP’s receive array will be capable of detecting energy from approximately 15° port to 15° starboard so that the true specular return can be detected and imaged. Orange is collaborating with Scripps in the 2021 yard fitting, dimensional surveys, and Sea Acceptance Tests of the SBP-29. 2022 field operations will further test the SBP system and acquire data over known geologic targets in central and south Cascadia and the Eel River Basin. Sub-bottom data acquired over features with previous generation SBP systems will be re-acquired with the SBP-29 (same sail line, etc.) for direct "apples-to-apples" comparison. EM-124 Multibeam data will be acquired coincident with SBP data, and may be used to compare with legacy multibeam data to determine if there are any mappable seafloor changes on a decadal time scale.

Seabed geoacoustic mapping from a commercial multibeam sonar ONR Littoral Geoscience and Optics, Program Manager, Reginald Beach

The research objectives of this project include investigating three-dimensional (3D) propagation, scattering and ambient sound of the acoustic field in the low to mid-frequency range around the Atlantis II Seamounts using an integrated network of sensors.

The largest earthquake ever recorded in US history occurred in 1964 on the Alaskan subduction zone fault where the Pacific plate slides steeply beneath Alaska on the North American plate. During this magnitude 9.2 event the Pacific plate slipped further beneath Alaska releasing built up strain, causing regions near Kodiak Island to suddenly move SE as much as 18 meters. This resulted in a large tsunami, much damage, and many deaths. The Pacific plate continues to move northwestward 6 cm/yr, compressing regions of Alaska, building up strain that would be released in a subsequent earthquake. GPS sites on Kodiak Island record northwestward motion and strain accumulation, but sites on the Shumagin Islands record little or no apparent motion suggesting two possibilities - either the Pacific plate in the Shumagin region is uncoupled from the overlying plate, such the plate is slipping quietly beneath the region, or else the Pacific plate is locked with the overlying plate near the trench. The first scenario suggests very little seismic and tsunami risk in western Alaska from subduction zone earthquakes, the second scenario poses significant risk and the potential for a large tsunami. The only way to determine where and if plate interface locking is occurring offshore is to measure the motion of the seafloor near the trench. This project will install three seafloor GPS-Acoustic (GPS-A) sites 60 km from the trench spanning the Shumagin Island to Kodiak region and the apparent transition from an unlocked to a locked interface on the subduction zone. If the fault is fully locked, the measurements should show all three sites moving roughly 12 cm NW during this interval. If the plate is unlocked in the Shumagin region, little or no motion of the two adjacent sites is expected. These observations are critical to assessing seismic and tsunami risk in the region and will provide a new understanding of the behavior of subduction zone faults near the trench.

Hurricane Ida moved through the Mississippi Delta and adjacent Louisiana shelf at the end of August 2021. The storm was similar in magnitude, areal extent, and landfall position (Cocodrie, LA) to the category 4 Hurricane Gustav in September 2008. Ida, a much stronger storm than either Hurricanes Harvey or Nate in 2017, likely introduced a significant quantity of oxygen into the sediment of the proximal coastal zone, perhaps enough to turn most of the top ~1 m of the sediment column oxic. We hypothesize that the change in redox and diagenetic conditions initially favored burial of bSi as unaltered opal rather than an authigenic aluminosilicate. Thirteen days prior to Ida’s landfall in Port Fourchon, LA (~45 km east of Cocodrie), we collected sediment cores at three sites in the topset delta sediment between the Southwest Pass (major Mississippi River distributary) and Cocodrie, LA aboard the R/V Pelican; all sites experienced Category 4 hurricane conditions from Ida with maximum sustained winds of 130 knots (67 m/s). The timing of our prior cruise provides a unique opportunity, which is near impossible to plan for with a traditional project, to revisit these sites and quantify the impact of Hurricane Ida on the fate of sediment biogenic silica (i.e., modality between sequestration types) as the system resets in the following months (e.g., single-day cruises in fall 2021, and winter, spring 2022) .

Characterization of the biological and chemical properties of dissolved organic matter in subsurface and surface microlayer waters of the western North Atlantic Ocean to establish a mechanistic understanding of conditions that promote surfactant accumulation that can influence air-sea gas exchanges. This work will include cruises during a high productivity period (between May and August) and a low productivity period (November). Four stations varying in relative productivity will be sampled. These stations will represent Delaware Bay, the coastal western Atlantic Ocean (~25km offshore), a productive open ocean region (~200km offshore), and an oligotrophic open ocean region (also ~200 km offshore). Stations will be occupied for 2 days on each cruise and surface waters (<1m) and surface microlayer waters will be collected throughout the day and night. Samples will be analyzed for their biological, chemical, and physical properties to better understand the controls on surfactant organic matter accumulation in the surface ocean.

Collection and analysis of seafloor sediment samples is a fundamental tool in marine geology. Sediment sampling is key to the study of earthquake hazards, climate change, and the deep biosphere. This project will focus on training scientists for seafloor sampling best practices. Practices encompass planning and executing an oceanographic field expedition involving collection of deep-sea marine sediments. The shore-based training will introduce participants to critical aspects of cruise planning and site selection. Such selection uses basic geophysical techniques, access to data, and use of core repositories. Participants will design a science-driven cruise plan with guidance from an experienced team of mentors. Then, the participants will sail on a UNOLS global class vessel to gain hands-on experience. The experience includes working with site survey, sampling equipment, and shipboard data collection. The training will conclude ashore with a review of the scientific outcomes of the cruise. The post-cruise component will allow for hands-on training. The training will include analytical, interpretive and archival techniques. The training will set the stage for efficient and successful future research using the collected materials. Participant selection will focus on promoting equity and diversity in marine geoscience.

The Great Lakes hold about 20% of the freshwater on Earth and have been increasingly impacted by human activities in recent decades. Lake Erie suffers from large, annually recurring, toxic cyanobacterial blooms in summer, whereas Lake Superior experiences smaller, localized cyanobacterial blooms after storm events. Cyanobacterial blooms have harmful ecological, human health, and economic implications. These blooms are a global phenomenon, observed in lakes and oceans, and can lead to low oxygen conditions and the production of toxins, both of which can be harmful for ecosystems. Understanding how different types of cyanobacteria influence nutrient cycling remains a major knowledge gap. This project aims to provide a deeper understanding of the long-term state of the Great Lakes ecosystem. The research approach combines new and established methods. Project results and implications will be shared with local and regional water interests in partnership with the Pittsburgh Collaboratory for Water Research, Education, and Outreach, the Great Lakes Commission Harmful Algal Blooms Collaborative, and the Lake Erie Area Research Network. Education is a central part of this project and training opportunities target next generation of scientists, including postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students. The students and postdoc will receive state-of-the-art training in the rapidly developing fields of biogeochemistry and geomicrobiology, while working with an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

The significance of doliolid microbial interactions: Do doliolids fundamentally alter the trophic structure and productivity of sub-tropical continental shelf food webs? The long-term goal of this project is to understand the ecological function of doliolids on subtropical continental shelves and their influence on microbial processes. In association with monthly oceanographic field expeditions on the mid-continental shelf at 31°N and two longer longitudinal expeditions complemented with experimental studies, the project investigates the relationship between doliolid abundance and life stage composition, their spatial relationships to marine snow aggregates and other zooplankton, water column microbial activity, bacterial production, and net system productivity. Utilizing a constellation of modern and classical approaches in microbial and zooplankton ecology, including deployment of an in situ zooplankton imaging system in the South Atlantic Bight, microbial metagenomics and transcriptomics, and stable isotope-based tracer experiments, these studies will allow the testing of three fundamental hypotheses. First, independent of total shelf productivity, the presence and abundance of doliolids is correlated with heterotrophy compared to periods when doliolids are not abundant. Second, doliolids predictably shape continental shelf microbial communities, activity, and function, and third, doliolids are detrital feeders benefiting nutritionally from the consumption of microbial enriched aggregated particles and fecal material - the pool to which they also contribute.

A US-led international effort, Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), has provided a continuous record of the full-water column, trans-basin fluxes of heat, mass, and freshwater in the subpolar North Atlantic since 2014, in partnership with the UK, Netherlands, Canada and Germany. Results from the first four years of OSNAP observations have challenged the current understanding of overturning circulation in the subpolar North Atlantic. This grant provides funding for an additional four years of observations in order to deliver to the community a ten-year time series of the meridional overturning, heat and freshwater fluxes in the subpolar basin. Variations in these quantities have been invoked to explain changes in a wide range of physical, chemical and biological parameters in the North Atlantic, Nordic Seas, and Arctic Ocean. Thus, by quantifying Atlantic meridional overturning variability and understanding its drivers, OSNAP is providing a critical first step towards addressing societally-relevant, interdisciplinary questions concerning the melting of Greenland ice and Arctic sea-ice, heat content in the Arctic Ocean, climate of the Nordic Seas, and anthropogenic carbon storage. The researchers will actively engage the broader international communities through four workshops, each targeting a societally relevant theme: 1) ocean biogeochemistry and carbon sequestration; 2) overturning in ocean models; 3) Arctic cryosphere; and 4) Nordic Seas variability. Two new postdocs and one graduate student will be supported in this phase of OSNAP and will benefit from the diversity of methodologies and exposure to the large number of OSNAP international scientists. In addition, approximately 20 graduate students from different US and international institutions will receive field training through participation in OSNAP cruises through 2024.

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will assemble, deploy, operate and recover a near real‐time passive acoustic whale detection buoy near Savannah, Georgia. The buoy will be assembled at WHOI, transported to Savannah, and deployed during summer of 2022. The data from the buoy will be displayed in near real time on the robots4whales.whoi.edu website and reviewed daily by an experienced analyst. The results of this analysis will be displayed on the robots4whales.whoi.edu website, delivered by text and email to interested parties, displayed in the Whale Alert app, and made available to the Whale Safe system. The buoy deployed in summer 2022 will operate for one year and will be recovered during summer, 2023. Shortly after recovery (within hours or days), a replacement buoy will be deployed to limit downtime. This replacement system will operate until summer 2024, when it will be recovered. Dr. Mark Baumgartner is the point of contact for WHOI and will oversee the project and participate in all project meetings.

Deployment of 2 BGC equipped Argo floats is requested during the pre-existing Sally Ride cruise between Seattle and San Diego in order to fill in gaps in coverage along the west coast.

The science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce is crucial to the U.S. health and economy, yet retention rates in STEM fields are poor, and the Geoscience community in particular is faced with a looming workforce shortage. Moreover, the Geoscience community continues to lack the diversity of the population at large. The STEM Student Experiences Aboard Ships (STEMSEAS) project is a 3-year partnership between the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, and the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) aimed at addressing three priorities: (1) increasing the number and diversity of students pursuing degrees and careers in geosciences; (2) preparing students for all possible career trajectories in the geosciences; and, (3) contributing to the evidence base for effective student engagement, learning and retention in STEM. The STEMSEAS project is achieving these goals by taking advantage of unused berthing capacity available on UNOLS vessels as they transit between U.S. ports in preparation for their next scientific expedition. These short (~5-7 days) transits offer a unique mobile classroom setting where undergraduate non-STEM, undecided-STEM, and geoscience majors can be exposed to geoscience professional practice and career exploration. By partnering with UNOLS and campus ?champions" at universities, including minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the project sends diverse cohorts of students to sea with a small team of geoscience faculty and mentors. STEMSEAS is built on a pilot-project that sent three cohorts (~10 undergraduate students each) selected from an applicant pool of ~875 students on three different research vessels during 2016. The pilot-project demonstrated the logistical feasibility of the program, and showed through preliminary data a strong potential for positive impact. While at sea, the students engage in a variety of hands-on activities that incorporate geoscience content, lab exercises, data collection/analysis, career exploration, and discussion/reflection. Upon completion of a transit, each participant is required to complete a post-expedition project, which they present back at their home institution, write a short article about their experiences, and participate in post-expedition webinars with other cohort members. The STEM Student Experiences Aboard Ships (STEMSEAS) project is a 3-year initiative aimed at addressing three priorities: (1) increasing the number and diversity of students pursuing degrees and careers in geosciences; (2) preparing students for all possible career trajectories in the geosciences; and, (3) contributing to the evidence base for effective student engagement, learning and retention in STEM. Application materials and evaluation surveys are providing data to assess the impact of the STEMSEAS project on student knowledge of and attitudes toward the geosciences and geoscience careers. The STEMSEAS project is designed to add to the evidence base regarding what kinds of experiences and interventions help to increase retention and persistence in geoscience-related majors, and what strategies are most effective at increasing the number and diversity of students entering the geoscience workforce pipeline. By creating innovative learning experiences on board charismatic research vessels, STEMSEAS is gathering data on the effectiveness of novel approaches for engaging students who may never have considered the geosciences as a field of study or career, students who are interested in the geosciences but are unsure of what direction to go, and STEM-interested students who may not have considered the specifics of the geosciences. Through these immersive experiences, STEMSEAS is exploring the effectiveness of short-term but intense learning activities.

The Great Lakes hold about 20% of the freshwater on Earth and have been increasingly impacted by human activities in recent decades. Lake Erie suffers from large, annually recurring, toxic cyanobacterial blooms in summer, whereas Lake Superior experiences smaller, localized cyanobacterial blooms after storm events. Cyanobacterial blooms have harmful ecological, human health, and economic implications. These blooms are a global phenomenon, observed in lakes and oceans, and can lead to low oxygen conditions and the production of toxins, both of which can be harmful for ecosystems. Understanding how different types of cyanobacteria influence nutrient cycling remains a major knowledge gap. This project aims to provide a deeper understanding of the long-term state of the Great Lakes ecosystem. The research approach combines new and established methods. Project results and implications will be shared with local and regional water interests in partnership with the Pittsburgh Collaboratory for Water Research, Education, and Outreach, the Great Lakes Commission Harmful Algal Blooms Collaborative, and the Lake Erie Area Research Network. Education is a central part of this project and training opportunities target next generation of scientists, including postdoctoral, graduate, and undergraduate students. The students and postdoc will receive state-of-the-art training in the rapidly developing fields of biogeochemistry and geomicrobiology, while working with an interdisciplinary team of scientists.

he physical properties of the ocean from the surface layers to the abyssal water masses are changing in concert with natural and anthropogenically influenced physical forcing and sustained observations of the ocean are critically important to establish these rates of change. One of the longest open-ocean hydrographic stations in the world is maintained at the Hydrostation S site (formerly known as the Panulirus site) located about 25 km southeast of Bermuda in the North Atlantic Ocean. This repeat biweekly hydrographic observations was initiated by Henry Stommel and co-workers in 1954. Now, in its seventh decade, it continues to be recognized as one of the most important sustained ocean time-series and provides an invaluable metric for the long-term state of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre in relation to the meridional overturning circulation, western boundary transport, and gyre recirculation. For example, the upper ocean warming trend has strengthened (about 0.8° C since the 1970's) while the deep Labrador Sea has cooled by a few tenths of a degree. The signature of deoxygenation has been observed at Hydrostation S in the upper ocean (about 7 micro-moles/kg/decade decrease in dissolved oxygen) as well as an intensification and expansion of the oxygen minimum zone. These changes suggest that the North Atlantic subtropical gyre is experiencing deoxygenation as in the Pacific Ocean as a result of increased upper ocean stratification and reduced solubility of oxygen in warmer waters. The Hydrostation S program and its data set are managed as a service to the ocean community, being openly distributed and used as a resource in understanding processes and patterns of variability in the ocean, as well as for education, mentorship and outreach activities. The Hydrostation S project will contribute to the research and training of six research specialists and research technicians at BIOS and contribute to the research projects of at least three Ph.D. students through on-going educational partnership with Princeton University and the University of Southampton in the U.K. The one-day Hydrostation S research cruises are an ideal platform for testing new sensors and for providing hand-on training to undergraduate students enrolled in summer programs. The Hydrostation S project is designed to address the overarching hypothesis that the physical properties of the upper-ocean to deep-ocean are changing in concert with natural and anthropogenically influenced physical forcing. Sustained observations of the ocean, such as those from Hydrostation S, remain critically important to establish rates of change to provide quantitative empirical data for myriad regional and global ocean synthesis and modeling of ocean processes and future ocean change. The major objective of Hydrostation S into the seventh decade is to continue the frequent water column sampling of temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen (and indirectly, sampling of important ocean carbon time?series) of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Such work is complementary to other sustained observations such as the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and Ocean Flux Program (OFP). As for the past five years, two CTD profiles will be conducted to better capture the deep-water variability while maintaining all the previous discrete depths. The first CTD cast will profile to full ocean depth (3,200-3,500 m) while the second CTD cast will profile from the surface to 500 m to allow for biogeochemical instrumentation not rated for full ocean depth and to support ancillary studies of ocean physics, biological processes and biogeochemistry. A secondary objective will be to build upon the collaborative comparison of physical data collected as part of two autonomous sensor projects. In the latter stages of the project, as ocean glider deployment becomes more sustainable and reliable, collaborative and comparative efforts will be used to test the capability of ocean gliders to provide data of sufficient quality to detect long-term oceanic change in a "virtual" mooring time-series mode. The robust and highly accurate Hydrostation S data will be used to test the capability of emerging technologies over the next five to ten years.

Long-term observations over several decades are a powerful tool for investigating ocean physics, biology, and chemistry, and the response of the oceans to environmental change. The Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series Study, known as BATS, has been running continuously since 1988. The research goals of the BATS program are: (1) to improve our understanding of the time-varying components of the ocean carbon cycle and the cycles of related nutrient elements such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and silicon; and, (2) to identify the relevant physical, chemical and ecosystem properties responsible for this variability. In addition, the BATS program has strong and diverse broader impacts, contributing to the field of ocean sciences by providing high quality ocean observations and data for seagoing scientists and modelers, and a framework through which researchers can conceive and test hypotheses. This award will support the operations of the BATS program for five more years. The primary BATS research themes are as follows: (1) Quantify the role of ocean-atmosphere coupling and climate variability on air-sea exchange of CO2, and carbon export to the ocean interior; (2) Document trends and the controls on the interannual to decadal scale variability in carbon and nutrient cycles to their coupling in the surface and deep ocean via the Redfield Ratio paradigm; (3) Quantify the response of planktonic community structure and function, and impact on biogeochemical cycles to variability in surface fluxes and dynamical processes; (4) Facilitate development, calibration and validation of next generation oceanographic sensors, tools and technologies; and, (5) Generate a dataset that can be utilized by empiricists, modelers and students. This research integrates ocean physics, chemistry and biology into a framework for understanding oceanic processes and ocean change in the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. The existing 29 years of BATS data provide robust constraints on seasonal and interannual variability, the response of the Sargasso Sea ecosystem to natural climate variability, and signal detection of potential ocean changes. This project would extend the BATS program through years 31-35 to address a series of ten interlinked questions through integrated research approaches and a multitude of collaborative efforts. In addition to the themes above, and embedded into the ten questions and approaches, the BATS team will focus on, for example, coupling of particle production and biogeochemistry; revisiting the complexities of the biological carbon pump; oxygen decline; and changes in the hydrography, physics, ocean carbon cycle and biogeochemistry of the Sargasso Sea. The highest quality data observation and collection will be maintained and used to address these questions. Importantly, a wide range of collaborations at the BATS site, spanning the physical and biogeochemical disciplines, will aid these broad goals. Strong links to community stakeholders, and close collaboration (including methods intercomparisons and personnel exchanges) with the Hawaii Ocean Time-series are proposed. This work will extend the research findings of the project into educational and training opportunities within and beyond the oceanographic community, including training and mentorship of both undergraduate and graduate students.

Nitrite oxidation is the only known biological process that produces nitrate, which comprises the largest fixed nitrogen reservoir in the ocean. Nitrite oxidation is carried out by nitrite oxidizing bacteria (NOB), and all known species are obligate aerobes. Nitrite reduction to N 2 occurs in multiple microbial pathways, generally under anoxic conditions. Despite their apparent incompatibility regarding oxygen, both processes are detected in the low oxygen or anoxic waters of oxygen minimum zones (OMZs). Thus, the fate of nitrite in OMZs has implications for the global fixed N budget. Nitrite oxidation is detected at high rates in essentially zero oxygen water in the most oxygen depleted depth intervals in OMZ regions, which suggests that some nitrite oxidizers might possess anaerobic metabolic capabilities. Apparently anaerobic nitrite oxidation has also been detected in the seasonally anoxic bottom waters of Chesapeake Bay. Due to the current impossibility of carrying out this research as planned in the OMZ of the Eastern Tropical South Pacific, we propose to investigate the mechanisms and environmental control of nitrite oxidation in Chesapeake Bay. The experimental approach will investigate three possible explanations for anaerobic nitrite oxidation: 1) Nitrite is oxidized to nitrate by different clades of NOB, which exhibit different tolerances/requirements for oxygen; 2) Nitrite dismutation, also performed by NOB, partially explains the cooccurrence of oxidation and reduction of nitrite; 3) Apparently anaerobic nitrite oxidation is indeed biologically mediated but does not always represent net production of nitrate from nitrite; rather it results from isotopic equilibration during enzyme-catalyzed interconversion of nitrite and nitrate. These questions will be addressed by performing a suite of 15 N-tracer incubations at 3 or more stations in Chesapeake Bay, contrasting unstratified oxic oceanic type waters near the mouth of the Bay with stratified anoxic conditions in mid Bay. The dependence of the rate processes on oxygen concentrations will be determined, and the composition of the microbial assemblages will be assessed in order to determine whether different microbial components are involved under different environmental conditions. The expression of genes involved in oxidation/reduction/ respiratory metabolisms at low oxygen concentrations will be measured across oxygen gradients and in oxygen manipulations to identify their potential role in supporting “anaerobic” nitrite oxidation.

Coastal regions around Alaska are experiencing some of the most rapid and extensive progressions of OA in the United States. By integrating observational data with species response studies, OA forecast models and human impact assessments have determined that Alaska coastal communities have a varying degree of vulnerability to OA, ranging from moderate to severe. Areas that are most vulnerable are located in regions where fisheries are vital for the state and national economy. Therefore, it is critical to sustain observing efforts and proactively deploy OA assets in regions that are experiencing rapid change or providing habitats to species that show acute vulnerability to present or future OA conditions, such as red king crab in the Bering Sea. The specific objectives of the research are to continue long-term observations of ocean acidification in the Gulf of Alaska to fulfill the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009 and the Strategic Plan for Federal Research and Monitoring Requirements of Ocean Acidification and its Implementation Plan requirements.

Axial Volcano is one of the most extensively studied sites on the global network of mid-ocean ridges. Three eruptions have been observed in 1998, 2011 and 2015 with a near continuous 20-year record of vertical geodesy from bottom pressure sensors in the caldera recording cycles of inflation and rapid syn-eruptive deflation. Axial volcano has also been the focus of several seismic imaging studies including a recent three-dimensional seismic reflection experiment that provide a remarkably detailed view of the magmatic system. In comparison, the geodetic models of inflation are limited in complexity and resolution by the small number of geodetic sites and the difficulty distinguishing distributed inflation from fault motion on the buried outward dipping ring faults using vertical geodesy alone. Here we propose to install a 10-year 4 station acoustic network at Axial that range between each pair of transponders and include a pressure gauge, temperature, salinity and velocimetry sensors. One station will be connected to the OOI Regional Cabled Array enabling real time acquisition of data. The primary scientific objective is to measure horizontal extension rates across and within the caldera that can be combined with the other geodetic observations to (1) discriminate between distributed inflation and motion on the buried outward dipping faults beneath the east and west caldera walls and thus, understand the pattern of seismic coupling on these faults throughout the eruptive cycle; (2) contribute data that can enable more complex models of inflation and (3) obtain measurement of the dike with for dikes that propagate across the acoustic baseline. A secondary objective is to provide an acoustic network that can support future efforts to demonstrate and optimize remote communication and navigation of autonomous underwater vehicles.

Characterization of microbial and viral evolutionary dynamics in diffuse flow hydrothermal vent fluids at Axial Seamount. This work will consist of two ancillary science days for three years in a row as part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) cruises that are scheduled annually to Axial Seamount on the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the coast of Oregon and Washington for maintenance of the cabled array. During these ancillary science days, a fluid sampler will be mounted on an ROV/HOV to collect filters and whole water from diffuse fluids at hydrothermal vents. Ideally, hydrothermal fluids will be collected from vents at the International District in Axial Seamount. These fluids will be preserved for cell counts, viral counts, and metagenomic analysis.

This day of ship time will support the recovery of an A-0-A self calibrating pressure sensor that is presently attached to the OOI Regional Cabled Array at the central caldera site on Axial Seamount

This SME is for the annual Regional Cabled Array Operations and Maintenance cruise.

ABSTRACT Axial Seamount is the most active volcano in the U.S. Pacific Northwest - it just happens to be located underwater, about 300 miles off the Oregon coast. It has erupted three times in the last 20 years, and we know it is building toward another eruption in the next few years. Consequently, it is an ideal site for long-term monitoring with the National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatory Initiative Cabled Array (OOI-CA) in the Northeast Pacific ocean, which is the world's most advanced underwater volcano observatory. Previous monitoring with the OOI-CA has shown that Axial Seamount has a very repeatable cycle of inflation and deflation that has been used to forecast eruptions. This project will deploy additional monitoring instruments at Axial Seamount over the next 5 years and these will allow us to better forecast the next eruption, will improve our models of magma is supplied and stored within the volcano, and will test ideas about the deep-sea marine environment is impacted by submarine eruptions. This research serves the national interest and society because it will improve our understanding of how volcanoes work and how eruptions can be better forecast (both on land and underwater). This project will fund modest, cost-effective, and timely enhancements to the instrumentation on the OOI Cable Array to address some deficiencies in the existing infrastructure. A key element will be deploying Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) instruments on the seafloor to measure changes in salinity to test the hypothesis that hydrothermal brines are released in the summit caldera during some eruptions. Specifically this project will: (1) keep one seafloor CTD that is already deployed operating on the OOI-CA for 5 more years, (2) add two additional seafloor CTDs at two other sites on the OOI-CA for expanded spatial coverage and needed redundancy, and (3) build eight Mini-BPR (bottom pressure recorder) sensors to replace other instruments that are part of the long-term geodetic monitoring that augments the observations from the OOI-CA. These enhancements to the monitoring effort at Axial Seamount will be available in time to be deployed during the next eruption at Axial Seamount (currently expected between 2020-2022), which will help to increase our understanding of the shallow magma supply and storage systems at active basaltic volcanoes, the processes that lead to and trigger eruptions, and the impacts of submarine eruptions on hydrothermal systems and chemosynthetic ecosystems.

This program, lead by Y. Marcon and G. Bohrmann (University of Bremen, is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, under between the University of Bremen with a subcontract with the University of Washington. The program focuses on the real-time, systematic and continuous monitoring (location, number, intensity) of all active bubble plumes issuing from Southern Hydrate Ridge utilizing cabled instrumentation that includes two multibeam sonar systems, a CTD and 4K camera provided by the two PI’s (see Marcon et al., (2021). Variability of Natural Methane Bubble Release at Southern Hydrate Ridge, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, https://doi. org/10.1029/2021GC009894). This is a multi-year effort.

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.

The Ocean Twilight Zone (OTZ) project is focused on enhancing basic understanding of the mesopelagic layer and broadly communicating the highest quality scientific knowledge about its ecology, biogeochemical processes, and role in global productivity and climate regulation. The OTZ team of scientists and engineers are studying the zone in a number of complimentary ways, with emphasis on developing and evaluating new technologies needed to overcome sampling challenges. Project foci include characterizing biomass and diversity of life the mesopelagic, filling gaps in knowledge about the life histories and behaviors of animals that live in or migrate into the zone, characterizing food webs and their linkages to the euphotic zone, and reducing uncertainties in the role of mesopelagic processes in carbon cycling and climate regulation.

he Earth?s flow of energy ? from animals, to plants, to microbes ? is dictated by electron transfers, namely, moving electrons from one molecule or element to another to gain energy. Photosynthesis is perhaps the most familiar such reaction, where the electrons from carbon dioxide and water are used to make oxygen and sugar. However, before the appearance of oxygen-generating metabolisms, early life metabolism was governed by different electron transfer reactions ? most of these involving metals because of their ability to readily donate and accept electrons. As a result of this early evolution, metals still play a central role in microbial life, as essential elements in enzymes. One such important metal is manganese (Mn), which is particularly good at donating and accepting electrons given that it can be in three different forms in the ocean. One form of Mn is a solid Mn-oxide, which is very reactive and almost as strong an oxidant as oxygen itself. This form of Mn is completely generated by bacteria, but we still know little about how bacteria do this, or why! One good place to understand these Mn reactions is in areas where oxygen is not present, because there, Mn reactions may dominate. The Gulf of Mexico is a region where oxygen concentrations have been decreasing steadily due to over-enrichment of nutrients from anthropogenic sources. This system is ideal for examining Mn reactions under low oxygen conditions, so in this project, how Mn reacts under different levels of oxygen will be determined. Scientists from the University of Rhode Island and Texas A&M University will also specifically target the bacteria that make these solid Mn oxides, to try and understand the mechanism of formation. Finally, the scientists will try to measure where the Mn is coming from and where it is going, to get a better idea of how Mn may undergo a complete reaction cycle. Understanding how metals cycle in the ocean is central to understanding life on Earth, as the inventory of metals has been subject to shifts in chemistry, like changing oxygen conditions, over the Earth?s history. A science communications student, an artist at sea, and a videographer will be incorporated into cruise activities to link the science with public outreach. This project will support three graduate students, undergraduate students, and two early career researchers. This project will focus on recruitment of underrepresented minorities to provide an introduction to STEM research and field work. At present, scientists from the University of Rhode Island and Texas A&M University have developed the chemical techniques to deconvolute manganese redox cycling in marine environments but have yet to thoroughly apply these new methods in diverse environmental systems or to couple manganese speciation and cycling with that of other elements. Here, the scientists propose to fully speciate manganese in the Gulf of Mexico, evaluating the formation, prevalence, and bioavailability of Mn(III)-L compounds and the role of microbes in facilitating Mn(III)-L and Mn oxide formation. In particular, the scientists seek to examine the stability of Mn(III)-L complexes across seasonal, salinity and oxygen gradients and to characterize both terrestrial and biotic Mn(III)-binding ligands. We hypothesize that Mn cycling, particularly in seasonally anoxic and suboxic zones, is intricately but enigmatically linked to the cycling of other redox sensitive species, including nitrogen and organic carbon compounds. This study will study these dynamics in the Gulf of Mexico, which has gradients in (1) productivity on a seasonal cycle, (2) salinity and terrestrial input via its tributaries and (3) a dynamic and seasonal oxygen regime. All of these gradients profoundly impact the redox chemistry of Mn and other elements and thus must be taken into account to create an accurate framework for understanding coupled redox cycling. In conducting this research, not only will we broadly elucidate the marine manganese cycling, we will also highlight previously cryptic chemical dynamics that drive the formation and dissipation of oxygen minimum zones in fragile coastal ecosystems. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Funded by Simons Foundation, New York City

Characterize the phytoplankton specific Redfield ratio (C:N:P) along a natural gradient of dissolved nutrients. This work will involve a track along the US West Coast where large gradients of dissolved nutrients have been historically observed. Continuous ships flowthrough seawater will be sampled along with hydrographic casts (4-8 per day). Data collection will include bottle casts for discrete depth samples (surface to 200m). Discrete samples from bottles and flow through system for flow cytometry, Particulate C,N,P, phytoplankton pigments and total dissolved N, P. On deck incubations will be performed in plexiglass tanks with seawater cooling. Deployment of a weighted trace metal clean tubing and deck-based electric teflon bellows pump will be required for offshore (250-400 km) stations.

he physical properties of the ocean from the surface layers to the abyssal water masses are changing in concert with natural and anthropogenically influenced physical forcing and sustained observations of the ocean are critically important to establish these rates of change. One of the longest open-ocean hydrographic stations in the world is maintained at the Hydrostation S site (formerly known as the Panulirus site) located about 25 km southeast of Bermuda in the North Atlantic Ocean. This repeat biweekly hydrographic observations was initiated by Henry Stommel and co-workers in 1954. Now, in its seventh decade, it continues to be recognized as one of the most important sustained ocean time-series and provides an invaluable metric for the long-term state of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre in relation to the meridional overturning circulation, western boundary transport, and gyre recirculation. For example, the upper ocean warming trend has strengthened (about 0.8° C since the 1970's) while the deep Labrador Sea has cooled by a few tenths of a degree. The signature of deoxygenation has been observed at Hydrostation S in the upper ocean (about 7 micro-moles/kg/decade decrease in dissolved oxygen) as well as an intensification and expansion of the oxygen minimum zone. These changes suggest that the North Atlantic subtropical gyre is experiencing deoxygenation as in the Pacific Ocean as a result of increased upper ocean stratification and reduced solubility of oxygen in warmer waters. The Hydrostation S program and its data set are managed as a service to the ocean community, being openly distributed and used as a resource in understanding processes and patterns of variability in the ocean, as well as for education, mentorship and outreach activities. The Hydrostation S project will contribute to the research and training of six research specialists and research technicians at BIOS and contribute to the research projects of at least three Ph.D. students through on-going educational partnership with Princeton University and the University of Southampton in the U.K. The one-day Hydrostation S research cruises are an ideal platform for testing new sensors and for providing hand-on training to undergraduate students enrolled in summer programs. The Hydrostation S project is designed to address the overarching hypothesis that the physical properties of the upper-ocean to deep-ocean are changing in concert with natural and anthropogenically influenced physical forcing. Sustained observations of the ocean, such as those from Hydrostation S, remain critically important to establish rates of change to provide quantitative empirical data for myriad regional and global ocean synthesis and modeling of ocean processes and future ocean change. The major objective of Hydrostation S into the seventh decade is to continue the frequent water column sampling of temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen (and indirectly, sampling of important ocean carbon time?series) of the North Atlantic subtropical gyre. Such work is complementary to other sustained observations such as the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) and Ocean Flux Program (OFP). As for the past five years, two CTD profiles will be conducted to better capture the deep-water variability while maintaining all the previous discrete depths. The first CTD cast will profile to full ocean depth (3,200-3,500 m) while the second CTD cast will profile from the surface to 500 m to allow for biogeochemical instrumentation not rated for full ocean depth and to support ancillary studies of ocean physics, biological processes and biogeochemistry. A secondary objective will be to build upon the collaborative comparison of physical data collected as part of two autonomous sensor projects. In the latter stages of the project, as ocean glider deployment becomes more sustainable and reliable, collaborative and comparative efforts will be used to test the capability of ocean gliders to provide data of sufficient quality to detect long-term oceanic change in a "virtual" mooring time-series mode. The robust and highly accurate Hydrostation S data will be used to test the capability of emerging technologies over the next five to ten years.