{"id":4747,"date":"2011-09-28T12:50:32","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T20:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mlmlblog.wordpress.com\/?p=4747"},"modified":"2011-09-28T12:50:32","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T20:50:32","slug":"lets-get-physical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/2011\/09\/28\/lets-get-physical\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s Get Physical!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
photo: E Donham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Emily Donham, Ichthyology Lab<\/p>\n

During Physical Oceanography class (MS 142) Professor Dr. Erika McPhee-Shaw invited interested students to participate in a day cruise aboard the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories 135\u2019 research vessel (R\/V) Point Sur.\u00a0 The cruise was part of a collaborative research project between scientists at the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS), the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) and the physical oceanography lab at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) (Dr. McPhee-Shaw is the lead PI).\u00a0 The mission included the deployment of oceanographic instrument moorings and the collection of conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) measurements at stations along an isobath, or line of constant depth, in Monterey Bay.<\/p>\n

\"Moss<\/a>
photo: E Donham<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I arrived at the ship at 0700 in order to make it aboard for the safety briefing before setting sail.\u00a0 The morning was foggy which delayed our departure by a half hour.\u00a0 At our first stop NPS researchers deployed an instrument mooring fitted with an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) which will take continuous water velocity measurements throughout the water column.\u00a0 These water velocity measurements will help the scientists understand how water is flowing in the bay.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The NPS team readying their mooring before deployment (photo: E Donham)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Next we moved further offshore to deploy Erika\u2019s instruments.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The first instrument was attached to a profiling mooring.\u00a0 The profiling mooring uses wave energy at the surface to move the instrument platform up and down a mooring wire.\u00a0 The instrument is therefore able to move from the seafloor to the surface taking a profile of the water column along its way.\u00a0 \u00a0The interval at which the platform makes one complete profile is dependent on the action of the surface waves and requires no additional energy from the instrument platform. \u00a0This technology enables researchers to obtain water column profiles at a location over extended periods of time without actually needing to be there.\u00a0 The interval at which the profiler will operate can be calculated ahead of time by the researchers just by knowing the usual sea states at the site.\u00a0 This particular instrument platform contained a CTD and will therefore be taking conductivity, temperature, and depth profiles.\u00a0\u00a0 Given the sea states in the bay these profiles will be taken roughly once every hour for the duration of its deployment.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dr. Erika McPhee Shaw and Craig Hunter attach the profiling instrument platform to the mooring wire (photos: E Donham)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our last deployment was a benthic frame very similar to the NPS\u2019s except it will sit further offshore and at a deeper depth.\u00a0 Also, besides having just an ADCP, this mooring has thermistors, or temperature sensors, spaced evenly along the mooring line from the seafloor to just below the surface.\u00a0 This instrument package will also record continuous temperature readings throughout the water column for the duration of its time on the seafloor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The MLML benthic frame is lowered into the water (photo: E Donham)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before returning to port my fellow classmate, Ryan Manzer, and I were able to assist the survey tech, Ben Jokinen, with CTD casts.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0It was really cool to get hands-on experience collecting oceanographic data.\u00a0 We were even able to watch the real-time data come in as the CTD left the surface and descended to the seafloor.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Ryan Manzer helps Ben Jokinen steady the CTD as it goes overboard (photo: E. McPhee-Shaw)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having the opportunity to participate in a real oceanographic research cruise \u00a0was really exciting.\u00a0 I had never realized the amount of teamwork and communication involved in oceanographic field work. \u00a0The ships captain, deck hands, survey staff and scientists really did have to work together to ensure a smooth and safe deployment.<\/p>\n

The cruise was a success and now the scientists have to (patiently) sit back and wait for the next month until they return to recover their moorings.\u00a0 Hopefully all of their instruments work properly and most importantly are still on the seafloor where they left them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Profiling mooring surface buoy (photo: E Donham)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Emily Donham, Ichthyology Lab During Physical Oceanography class (MS 142) Professor Dr. Erika McPhee-Shaw invited interested students to participate in a day cruise aboard the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories 135\u2019 research vessel (R\/V) Point Sur.\u00a0 The cruise was part of a collaborative research project between scientists at the Naval Post Graduate School (NPS), the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":291,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"MLML Student Life","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/291"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4747\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mlml.sjsu.edu\/student-life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}