Seas
Brief Summary of our Science Program
In the fall and winter of 2011-2012 we began our active scientific study of the open ocean to the west of the Sovereign Haida Islands of Haida Gwaii. The Haida people call this ocean their Tang Gwan. We began collection of remote sensing data from the fleet of satellites in orbit that constantly monitor and report on observations of the Tang Gwan. In December 2011, using ships of opportunity, we started monthly collections of water samples from the region for chemical and biological studies. In May, working with two state of the art Slocum Ocean Gliders, we began our program of glider missions of many weeks duration in our area of interest. These gliders carry a suite of ocean instruments and dive from the surface to great depth many times each day as they traverse the study region. Our use of these Slocum Gliders is certainly the most intensive use of such gliders in the NE Pacific.
By June we were equipping our research ship which departed in July and remained on station well into September. It carried our team of ocean scientists representing many disciplines. The ship deployed and recovered the Slocum gliders at sea and in partnership with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also deployed 20 instrumented Argos Drifters which will remain at sea for more than a year reporting hourly via satellite on their position and instrument observations. Instruments aboard the ship have been used to collect tens of thousands of instrument data sets of both air and water, water samples from surface to great depth, and biological samples. Specific to our ocean pastures phytoplankton we’ve employed an array of bio-optical instruments from orbital, ship board, glider, and deep submersible platforms including multi-spectral fluorometers and FIRe systems. We have for the first time intensively deployed our modified MOCNESS plankton collection system which carried a state-of-the-art multi-frequency biomass sonar to assist in the study of the dial migration of zoo-plankton, a phenomenon often described (and we have confirmed) as “the greatest animal migration on earth.” Our research fishing efforts returned much data from captured specimens and lastly our trained observers recorded sightings consistent with the great tradition of observer based natural history.
The extensive and intensive ocean science work we are conducting is surely one of the most, if not the most, intensive and comprehensive study of the North East Pacific ecosystem ever performed. We are now in possession of and processing a vast treasure trove of ocean science data which will help us in our world class ocean science work. Preliminary studies of the data have already revealed amazing discoveries of knowledge never before reported in the world of ocean science. Our work both in the lab and at sea will continue through 2013 and beyond.
Contact us via email to research@hsrc1.com