Research

This award provides an additional three years of support for the Oceanic Flux Program (OFP). This program was first established in 1978 to measure the export flux of particles from the surface to the deep ocean in the deep Sargasso Sea and represents the longest and most continuous particle flux time-series of its kind. This program and the time-series record will continue to help the oceanographic community to answer questions about the relationship between deep ocean particle flux and climate and biological, physical, and chemical oceanographic processes. In the past, the OFP has provided evidence for coupling between the upper and deep ocean processes linked to seasonal, episodic (e.g., physical and meteorological forcing) and climate patterns. Looking to the future, this program will utilize increasingly advanced instrumentation and analytical tools to address questions about the material that sinks from the surface to deep ocean and its controls. The OFP provides education and training for students from the high school to Ph.D. level and supports early career researchers. The OFP time-series represents a 43-year, nearly continuous record focused on particle fluxes in the deep ocean. With increasingly more data available from the lengthening record, investigators can put observed biogeochemical patterns into perspective to understand the interplay between climate and ocean functioning. The availability of data from complementary nearby Hydrostation S, the Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series (BATS), the Bermuda Testbed Mooring (1994-2007), the Tudor Hill atmospheric tower and other Bermuda sampling programs provide additional opportunities to study upper ocean physics and biogeochemistry coupled with deep ocean biogeochemical processes. The OFP record is becoming long enough to study deep flux linkages with gyre circulation and advective processes. The OFP’s archive is an unparalleled resource for retrospective studies of temporal trends and the biogeochemical consequences of a changing ocean, including future impacts of ocean acidification. As the OFP heads into the future, increasingly sophisticated OFP mooring instrumentation (ADCP current profiling and backscatter; MicroCAT temperature, salinity, and oxygen measurements) and advances in digital imaging and analytical tools (both chemical and genomic) to probe the recovered flux materials continue to reveal novel, fundamental information about the oceanic particle flux and its controls.

The 6 day cruise represents the capstone event of HPR230G "CSI Oceans": a grand challenge, general education class offered through the Honors program at URI. Ten undergraduate honors students (of any major) will join the science party. In the classes leading up to the cruise, they will have learned fundamentals of oceanography, instrumentation and measurement, and also participated in building floats and drifters for deployment during the cruise. Science objectives: We will turn-around a hydroacoustic mooring located in 2000m depth just south of the shelf - see map (1.5 days). We will examine AVISO and remote sensing ocean color and SST and select a feature (eddy, filament, front) in or near the Gulf to deploy DIY drifters, floats and some 'mini-boats' built by local school groups. We will do a CTD-based survey of a feature of interest (up to 100km scale, 2 days). We will also deploy the URI glider, funded through NERACOOS and C-AIM. The overarching scientic goal fulfills the objectives laid out in Omand's CAREER proposal - to release RAFOS-tracking floats (MINIONs) that will track springtime subduction along the north wall of the Gulf Stream. Teaching objectives: We will conduct classes throughout the cruise for the students, analyze and discuss the data we collect. We will also work with the ISC staff to deliver programming to schools and through open live events. Primary funding sources affiliated with the cruise: RIEP, OTZ Network Array

Geologic hazards such as large megathrust earthquakes and tsunamis occur at convergent margins where tectonic forces push and drag one tectonic plate beneath another. One example of a convergent margin is the Cascadia Subduction Zone off western North America, where the slow ongoing descent of the Juan de Fuca plate beneath coastal northern California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia has generated large earthquakes and associated tsunamis in the past. Knowledge of the structural and physical properties of the sediments that are being scraped off the Juan de Fuca plate and pushed onto the North American plate is of great importance because the presence of thick sediments increases the potential for great megathrust earthquakes. The scraped off sediments along the Cascadia margin contain significant amounts of naturally occurring methane gas and other fluids. The presence and variations of these fluids along the margin have a large impact on how the seabed responds and shakes during an earthquake. The goal of this project is to acquire an open-access, marine wide-angle seismic reflection/refraction dataset across the Cascadia accretionary wedge encompassing the full length of the margin. These surveys consist of the deployment and recovery of short-period ocean bottom seismometers (OBSs) and a large-N array of ocean bottom nodes (OBNs) leased from a commercial provider using a remotely operated vehicle. The sensors will record human-made acoustic signals of a seismic reflection survey off the Cascadia margin, as well as signals from naturally occurring seismicity. The data recorded by these sensors will allow researchers to document variations in earthquake shaking properties of the sediments off the US west coast. Such information is critical for predicting shaking along the western US under hypothetical scenarios of future large earthquake rupture and assessing tsunami and submarine landslide hazards caused by earthquakes. This project is being conducted in partnership with the USGS. The OBS survey was completed in May-July, 2021, during R /V M. Langseth cruise MGL2103 and R/V Oceanus cruise OC2106A. The OBSs recorded natural seismicity and the controlled-source acoustic signals of the R/V M. Langseth reflection survey (cruise MGL2104, June-July, 2021). The second part of the project will deploy sensors (ocean bottom nodes) on the seabed along a survey line extending from near the coastline out to ~100 miles offshore Oregon to record signals from controlled-source acoustic pulses from a continuation of the seismic reflection survey off the Cascadia margin planned for Spring 2022. The project leverages the location of Langseth prior to its movement to the Atlantic Ocean in 2022, and already funded seismic reflection survey of the Cascadia margin, increasing the scientific return by enabling a whole new suite of scientific data to be collected and broadening the base of potential users for these complementary open-access data sets. The OBN data collected will be open-access and will be released to the community immediately after acquisition and checked for quality control. The data will be reduced to standard digital formats as well as provided as a raw continuous digital time series. The nodal array will sample the seismic wavefields at very high-resolution (hundreds-of- meters lateral resolution) across a transect representative of accretionary wedge structural deformation for central Cascadia. The project will provide much needed data to create accurate, multi-resolution models of the subsurface structure of the Cascadia accretionary prism, filling a critical knowledge gap for improving earthquake and tsunami hazard assessments for Cascadia. The data will enable researchers to develop models using a variety of state-of-the-art methodologies, including multi-parameter 2-D elastic full waveform inversion, to address multiple scientific problems of high importance, such as: (a) Documenting variations in accretionary wedge site response, which is critical for predicting earthquake-triggered shaking along the western US and assessing tsunami/landslide hazards under hypothetical scenarios of future megathurst rupture, and to test proposed linkages between paleo great earthquakes and distribution of turbidites. (b) Determining accretionary sediment properties (Vp, Vs, density, porosity, and fluid pore pressure) indicative of fluid expulsion and/or retention, drainage networks, and their relation to structural style and seafloor fluid seepage.

Due to necessary engine repairs on the EPA R/V Lake Guardian , EPA plans to procure vessel support in April and May 2022 (up to 19 days total) to conduct GLNPO’s mission-critical spring water quality and biology monitoring survey of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, and Lake Huron and in September 2022 (up to 15 days total) to conduct GLNPO’s mission-critical summer water quality and biology monitoring survey of Lake Superior and Lake Huron. This survey helps EPA fulfill monitoring and assessment commitments specified in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement between Canada and the United States and in the U.S. Clean Water Act. EPA uses data from the spring and summer surveys to assess the status of overall water quality and lower food web health at a whole-lake scale.

Pioneer Array servicing of moorings approximately every 6 months through 2023.

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.

Ocean acidification is the process that lowers the pH of the ocean over time due to uptake of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This project investigates how chemical reactions in marine sediments exposed to high riverine sediment loads influence ocean acidification in coastal waters. Although we know that ocean acidification affects marine life and commercial fisheries in coastal waters, little is known about how acidification processes in the water column are influenced by reactions occurring in sediments on the sea floor. The role of large sediment deposits from rivers in these processes has also never been investigated. This study will be conducted in the Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico. The Mississippi River transports a high sediment load to the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico and plays an important role in the economy of the southern coast of the United States. Results from this study will be useful to the oceanographic community for increasing understanding of ocean acidification processes in delta and shelf environments. It will also benefit decision makers interested in predicting the role of sediments on the nutrient -rich Louisiana shelf for discharge control purposes. This project also has an important educational component by training undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students, providing experiences at sea for undergraduates, and conducting outreach activities with K-12 students. The geochemical and microbiological processes responsible for the transformation of particles deposited on the seafloor will be characterized near the Mississippi River mouth and along the nearby continental slope. The release of acids (CO2) and bases (alkalinity) from the sediment will be quantified using autonomous instruments deployed on the seafloor to determine whether sediments contribute to the acidity of the surrounding water column or instead provide bases to buffer the water column from atmospheric CO2 inputs. As the Mississippi River discharge during the later Winter and Spring provides much more sediment to the coastal zone compared to the rest of the year, research cruises will be taken twice a year to determine how seasonal variations in riverine discharge affect the release of acids and bases into the water column. Mathematical models will then be used to predict the effect of seasonal variations on acids or bases release to the water column. This study will therefore provide a quantitative understanding of the role of large sediment depositions to the seafloor on sediment geochemical and microbiological processes and their feedback to the overlying waters. Simultaneously, a large data set will be generated and used to calibrate mathematical models and better characterize benthic-pelagic interactions. Such efforts are needed to predict how continental margins respond to constantly increasing stress from anthropogenic activities.

The main purpose of the ship usage includes: 1) deployment and retrieval of bottom mounted equipment for planned recording of data for meteotsunami events during severe weather; 2) conduct some transect surveys to verify, cross calibrate and validate the data from the deployed instruments. Since each deployment will last for a month or so (limited by battery life of the instruments), we need to have several trips to cover several months of winter storm time periods.

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.

The purpose of this collaborative project is to advance understanding of the role of marine planktonic animals (or zooplankton) in the biological pump, or transport of carbon from surface to deeper ocean waters. This movement of carbon from surface to deep ocean water can ultimately affect carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with implications for global climate. Many marine zooplankton, including species of copepods and krill, play a direct role in the biological pump both because they are abundant and because they can migrate from surface waters at night, where they feed, to depths of more than 500 m at night. At the same time, some organisms called flux feeders will remain at depth and do not migrate. Instead, they rely on particles produced by other zooplankton feeding in surface waters. In this project, the investigators are focusing on populations of flux feeders in the deeper ocean waters of the Sargasso Sea. They are leveraging an ongoing long-term research program, conducting field collections using specialized nets and particle traps, as well lab experiments, as a way to understand how these organisms modify the particles around them. This project is supporting a postdoctoral scientist and providing research experiences for undergraduates at two institutions. An education specialist is creating lesson plans for an award-winning Ask-A-Biologist website, designed for public and K-12 audiences. Images of zooplankton will be disseminated to the public and scientific community via EcoTaxa (a web platform devoted to plankton biodiversity, with images and taxonomic annotation) and physical samples will be archived as part of a teaching library. The oceanic biological carbon pump refers to the export of dissolved and particulate organic carbon to the deep ocean, and it is a significant driver of atmospheric carbon uptake by the oceans. Evidence from long-term research carried out at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site suggests that the spectrum of particles collected by gel-traps below the euphotic zone changes drastically below 150 m, which is attributed to resident populations of zooplankton that feed on vertically migrating zooplankton as well as sinking particles. The goals of this study are to investigate the role of different zooplankton taxa on both particle aggregate formation and in particle transformation, and to compare and characterize the particles generated by the zooplankton communities with those collected by particle traps. The investigators are combining field collections with experiments onboard ship and in environmental chambers. They are collecting samples over two years, with three cruises a year to capture distinct seasons. They are assessing high-resolution vertical distribution of zooplankton in the upper 600 m using Multiple Opening-Closing Net and Environmental Sensing System (MOCNESS) tows during day- and night-time, to distinguish diel vertical migrators from resident populations and to quantify contributions to particulate organic carbon flux via fecal pellet production. On each cruise, sinking particles are being collected using gel trap tubes attached to the particle traps deployed monthly at BATS. In addition, roller tank experiments are determining how individual zooplankton mediate aggregate formation. Particle types and fecal pellets are being characterized using image analysis and DNA-based analysis of microbial communities. Finally, ongoing data collection from the long-term BATS program is providing invaluable environmental context and will ensure results from this study contribute to ongoing community efforts to observe and predict the fate of carbon in our global system.

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.

topside recovery and swap of the metocean surface buoy for Fugro in Walker Ridge.

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 6 day cruise represents the capstone event of HPR230G "CSI Oceans": a grand challenge, general education class offered through the Honors program at URI. Ten undergraduate honors students (of any major) will join the science party. In the classes leading up to the cruise, they will have learned fundamentals of oceanography, instrumentation and measurement, and also participated in building floats and drifters for deployment during the cruise. Science objectives: We will turn-around a hydroacoustic mooring located in 2000m depth just south of the shelf - see map (1.5 days). We will examine AVISO and remote sensing ocean color and SST and select a feature (eddy, filament, front) in or near the Gulf to deploy DIY drifters, floats and some 'mini-boats' built by local school groups. We will do a CTD-based survey of a feature of interest (up to 100km scale, 2 days). We will also deploy the URI glider, funded through NERACOOS and C-AIM. The overarching scientic goal fulfills the objectives laid out in Omand's CAREER proposal - to release RAFOS-tracking floats (MINIONs) that will track springtime subduction along the north wall of the Gulf Stream. Teaching objectives: We will conduct classes throughout the cruise for the students, analyze and discuss the data we collect. We will also work with the ISC staff to deliver programming to schools and through open live events. Primary funding sources affiliated with the cruise: RIEP, OTZ Network Array This cruise had to be split into 2 legs due to weather. This SME covers Leg II

Piston and gravity coring at sites on the Southern New England shelf and along the shelf edge in support of the ONR Seabed 2021-2022 experiment.

Symbiosis with microbes is ubiquitous and critical to fundamental biological functions such as development and nutrition. Thus, the success of a host animal may depend on its ability to find and associate with its microbial partner(s). While some hosts directly transmit their symbionts from parent to offspring in order to guarantee this, acquisition of microbial symbionts from the environment is vital for the survival of many obligately-symbiotic animals. An understanding of the free-living symbiont population and how the host acquires those symbionts is fundamental to our comprehension of ecological processes in all ecosystems, yet almost nothing is known about either. Hydrothermal vent ecosystems provide important opportunities to investigate the role of microbial symbionts in host-, community-, and ecosystem-level ecology, since these ecosystems are dominated by animals whose survival is clearly linked to the acquisition of one or a few specific symbionts. This project begins to fill a gap in our understanding of the factors driving community structure at hydrothermal vents by addressing the potential for free-living symbiont populations to affect host animal establishment, while also expanding our general knowledge regarding the impact of host-associated microbes on fundamental ecological processes that apply across ecosystems. The results of this project will be shared via educational videos and live-broadcasts to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History and University-run museums. The investigators will also design and implement an educational program about symbiosis and hydrothermal vent biology suitable for middle and high school classes. Finally, the investigators will train a diverse group of undergraduate and graduate students in both research and the development of science educational programs. This project will focus on two sister genera of snails, Alviniconcha and Ifremeria, which predominate at vents in the southwestern Pacific. At vents in the Lau Basin (Tonga), three species of Alviniconcha and one species of Ifremeria coexist. These four species all host distinct lineages of chemoautotrophic proteobacteria in their gill tissue as adults that provide the bulk of their nutrition. Previous work in this region showed a structured snail species distribution that corresponds to the concentrations of key chemical substrates for symbiont chemoautotrophic metabolism, suggesting that snail species are sorting into geochemical habitats based on symbiont physiology. It is not clear if this sorting is occurring among established snail-bacteria symbioses, or whether environmental effects on the availability of specific symbionts are influencing the recruitment of host species, since arriving and developing snail larvae must obtain their symbionts from the environment. This study aims to 1) assess the larval supply and population structure of symbiotic vent snails via collections of larval, juvenile, and adult snails, 2) investigate the developmental timing of symbiont acquisition through microscopy and marker gene sequencing of gametes, larvae, and juveniles, and 3) use metagenomic sequencing to quantify the availability of free-living symbionts in the environment to arriving larvae. Altogether, this series of interlinked efforts will allow for an improved understanding of free-living bacterial symbiont populations, the timing of symbiont acquisition, and host snail life history, as well as how these things interact to shape vent communities.

Ship time dedicated to facilitate experiential learning for UGA and USG graduate and undergraduate students.

This mission involves the collection of physical, biological and chemical oceanographic data onboard oceanographic surveys conducted in 3 different geographic regions: Gulf of Maine and Scotian Shelf and Slope (Maritimes Region AZMP, AZOMP), Newfoundland and Labrador Shelf (Newfoundland and Labrador Region AZMP), and in the Labrador Sea from the Labrador Shelf, Canada to Cape Desolation on the Greenland shelf (AZOMP). Through the collection of an array of physical, chemical, and biological oceanographic data, this mission aims to: Characterize and understand the causes of oceanic variability at the seasonal, inter-annual and decadal scales across the northwest Atlantic. Provide multidisciplinary datasets that can be used to establish relationships among biological, chemical and physical oceanographic variables. Provide quality data for the validation of oceanographic model outputs and calibration of remote-sensed observations from gliders, Argo floats, and satellite imagery. Provide quality data to support sound decision-making on key government priorities such as climate change, marine protected areas, species at risk and fisheries resource management. Recover and re-deploy oceanographic moorings placed in areas to study ocean properties along with movements of marine mammals (NL AZMP). Recover oceanographic moorings located at 53 North in support of the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Program (OSNAP), an international effort involving both DFO and WHOI scientists to quantify the subpolar AMOC and its intra-seasonal to inter-annual variability via overturning metrics, including associated fluxes of heat and freshwater (AZOMP).

The project will improve the utility of temperate and high-latitude planktic foraminifera in paleoclimate research and quantify the effects of modern climate change on foraminifera assemblages in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. The main objectives are to expand our knowledge of the ecology and environmental controls on the geochemistry of temperate and higher-latitude foraminifera species, quantify their response to modern changes in oceanographic conditions (specifically marine heat waves), and constrain foraminiferal geochemical signatures as they sink to the seafloor. This will be achieved through a significant field-based and laboratory effort that includes newly collected plankton tows, short-duration ship-based culture experiments, assemblage data from archived plankton tow samples, and the deployment of two moored sediment traps. The proposed multi-pronged sampling strategy will provide critical samples needed to understand the biogeochemistry and ecology of foraminifera in this important ocean margin region, increase their utility in understanding past oceanographic conditions, and lay the groundwork for understanding how high-latitude species will respond to future climate change. Highly controlled culture experiments will quantify trace element incorporation dynamics and mechanisms responsible for intrashell trace element variability in temperate to polar species. The results of these experiments will offer important information that can be used to interpret the geochemistry of fossil foraminifera in temperate to high-latitude regions, broaden our understanding of the controls on trace element incorporation in high-latitude and temperate foraminifera species, and improve their utility in paleoceanographic reconstructions. Sediment trap, plankton tow, and cultured specimens will be analyzed for their trace element and isotopic composition. Live captured specimens will be analyzed to determine their genotype and microbiome. Foraminifera and sediment trap samples not used by the PIs in this project will be archived at the OSU Marine Geological Repository for future studies by the scientific community.

Located in the Northeast Pacific Ocean off the coasts of Oregon and Washington, the Endurance Array is part of a regional observatory network that includes OOI, Station Papa, and Ocean Networks Canada. Measurements taken by this network collectively capture variability of ocean properties across a broad range of temporal and spatial scales. They allow examination of ocean health issues, including hypoxia, ocean acidification, and harmful algal blooms. The Coastal Endurance Array is made up of two cross-shelf moored array lines. The Oregon Line, off the coast of Newport, Oregon, is located at 44° 35’N, from 125°W to coast. The Washington Line, off Grays Harbor Washington, is located at 47oN, from 125oW to the coast. Gliders move and collect data around, along, and between these lines. Two Endurance Array sites include platforms connected to OOI’s Regional Cabled Array. The Coastal Endurance Array is designed to observe cross-shelf and along-shelf variability in the region. Each line contains three sites spanning the slope (~500-600 m), shelf (~80-90 m) and inner-shelf (~25-30 m). The three sites across the shelf and slope are associated with characteristic physical, geological, and biological processes. All six sites contain fixed sensors at the top and bottom of the water column paired with an adjacent water column profiler. The Oregon and Washington Lines are both affected by wind-driven upwelling and downwelling, but shelf stratification and upper-ocean properties are influenced differently by the Columbia River. The Washington Line is north of the Columbia River outflow and the Oregon Line is south of it. Observations on both sides of the river outflow allow for a greater understanding of regional coastal ocean ecosystem responses. Mooring lines provide synoptic, multi-scale observations of the eastern boundary current regime. Coastal gliders bridge the distances between the fixed sites and allow for adaptive sampling.

The proposed work will build off of previous work in the region and will rely on the deployment of persistent autonomous sampling platforms and the development of advanced autonomy behaviors to collect upper ocean physical oceanographic data in submesoscale features of interest, with objectives of increasing predictability.

Funds for this cruise come from a OSU account: FS019D Oceanography Boot Camp The funds originate from an anonymous donor and have already been approved