Welcome to the data collection page

December 11, 2012 – 1:36 pm

This is where it gets fun!  I am going to take you on a tour of the ship, show you some of our instrumentation and give you a rough idea of the data we collected and how it was collected.  PLUS this is the space where we will start showing preliminary results.  Let’s get started!

Category 03 methodology 03.1 data collection science | Permalink | Comment (0)

Plankton Sampling

January 18, 2013 – 9:40 am

If you are going to work on the ocean pastures you must sample plankton, and you might as well get a lot of samples, heck, you might even want to invent a more efficient method of sampling.  We did all of those things, before, during, inside, and outside of the plankton bloom and around the clock.  We have hundreds of samples of phytoplankton and hundreds of samples of zooplankton.  Each sample contains hundreds to thousands of plankton individuals.

Collecting phytoplankton is a relatively easy chore, however viewing, describing and estimating the quantity of phytoplankton can take quite a while.

Collecting zooplankton on the other hand is a much more difficult task.  It takes big nets, to catch small creatures.  Once caught, the zooplankton then need to be sorted and subsampled.

              

The subsamples are then either frozen or stored in formalin.  This video will give you an idea of the size of the chore required to catch these tiny animals.


 

 

Tags , , , , , , | Category 03 methodology 03.1 data collection science | Permalink | Comment (0)

Water Samples

January 9, 2013 – 9:51 am

Running an ocean pasture science plan requires water sampling and analysis, a lot of it. We took several hundred water samples over the course of the project.  Samples were taken before, during, inside and outside of the bloom.

 

Samples were taken from the surface to depth using 10 litre Niskin bottles  

The Niskin bottles were lowered into the ocean on a cable many times a day.

Samples were preserved and have been sent to a commercial laboratory for chemical analysis. Other samples were analysed onboard the vessel.

Tags , , , | Category 03 methodology 03.1 data collection science | Permalink | Comment (0)

Slocum Electric Gliders

January 4, 2013 – 12:00 am


One of the most cutting edge tools we used this past year was a Slocum Electric Glider. In fact we used two Slocum gliders over the spring and summer and have a new launch coming up very soon.  As you can see by this photo the gliders had slightly different instrument payloads. Both gliders measured many physical characteristics from the surface to the abyss both inside and outside of the plankton bloom including; dissolved oxygen, fluorometry, coloured dissolved organic matter, temperature, depth, conductivity, and scattering.  Working at sea with Gliders can be a lot of fun  when the seas are friendly,

 

 

but can be pretty challenging when the seas are rough!

 

At this time we may be the only private Canadian research and development company with the experience and know how to use Slocum gliders.  We are currently developing our own set of instrumentation designed specifically for measurement of ocean pastures to be used onboard the gliders.  Data from our gliders is providing never before seen information on plankton blooms far offshore.

 

Visit Teledyne Webb Research to learn more about autonomous underwater gliders

Tags , , , | Category 03.1 data collection science technology | Permalink | Comment (0)

Conductivity, Temperature and Depth (CTD) Sensors

January 3, 2013 – 2:50 pm

CTDs measure conductivity, temperature and depth.  It is a standard instrument used in oceanography however, our CTD measured much more than C, T, and D.  Our CTD was also equipped with a transmissometer, a turbidity sensor, a dissolved oxygen sensor, a photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) sensor, and a fluorometer.  This sophisticated piece of equipment was calibrated at the manufacturer prior to use.

We lowered the CTD  into the deep hundreds of times prior to restoring our ocean pasture, during its growth and naturally for control and baseline studies of waters outside of the bloom.  This data gives us extremely valuable information about the conditions of the ocean.

 

Tags , , , , , | Category 03.1 data collection science technology | Permalink | Comment (0)

FIRe!

December 11, 2012 – 2:52 pm

Another important piece of scientific equipment we purchased and made use of this year was a very sophisticated fluorometry tool known as a Fluorescence Induction and Relaxation system or FIRe.  It is used to measure variable chlorophyll fluorescence in photosynthetic organisms.  Over the course of the project we made several hundred measurements with the FIRe instrument using samples from the surface to depth at all times of the day and night. The FIRe was one of 6 fluorometers that were in near continuous use during the project.

 

Visit Satlantic.com to learn more about the FIRe system

Tags , , , , | Category 03.1 data collection science technology | Permalink | Comment (0)

HSRC Ocean Drifters

December 11, 2012 – 2:50 pm

The modern drifter is a high-tech version of the “message in a bottle”. It consists of a surface buoy and a subsurface drogue (sea anchor), attached by a long, thin tether. The buoy measures temperature and other properties, and has a transmitter to send the data to passing satellites. The drogue dominates the total area of the instrument and is centered at a depth of 15 meters beneath the sea surface.

We were very lucky to be provided 20 ocean drifters from the United States National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for use in our project.  Like the rest of our instruments we deployed them inside the bloom and outside the bloom.  In fact you can track our drifters on this website.  The drifters are an outstanding tool as they allow us to track our bloom with a high degree of accuracy.

One of the most fun things about the drifters was deployment.  We developed a good method to deploy the 44 pound instruments.

 

Step 1 – get a good grip and bend your knees.

 

 

 

 

Step 2 – develop some torque in your core.

 

 

 

 

Step 3 – gently deploy the drifter behind the ship.

 

 

 

A bit of showmanship is not a requirement, but it does make life aboard the ship a bit more fun!

 

Learn more about the NOAA Ocean drifters program here.

Tags , , , , , | Category 03.1 data collection science | Permalink | Comment (0)

iron induces phytoplankton blooms that take up carbon

November 26, 2012 – 7:28 pm

Pollard et al (2009) report the addition of iron to high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll regions induces phytoplankton blooms that take up carbon. Although knowledge about carbon, phytoplankton and carbon export needs more research to be properly quantified, Pollard’s team found natural iron fertilization (by which I think they mean naturally occurring concentrations of iron rather than artificially enhanced iron concentrations by human intervention) resulted in enhanced carbon movement to the deep ocean. They found carbon carbon movement within a highly productive, naturally occurring iron-rich region in the sub-Antarctic Southern Ocean to be two to three times larger than a comparable, nearby area not so richly endowed with naturally occurring iron. They claim their findings support the hypothesis that increased iron supply to the glacial sub-Antarctic may directly enhance carbon movement to the deep ocean.

Tags , , | Category 01.1 significance of the problem | Permalink | Comment (0)

The #yin&yang of land and sea tells us that as much as pastures on land rely on water from the sea the plant life of our #oceanpastures are replenished by the dust from the land.

November 25, 2012 – 11:55 pm

This is a plant of grass not trees. Today because of high CO2 in the air grass is staying green longer into the dry season and is better ground cover. That means less #dust in the wind and the collapse of the ocean #phytoplankton.

About one quarter of the Earth’s land is made up of grasslands.Grasslands are usually large, wide open spaces and are often found in between forests and deserts. Think of grasslands as those places that are green and lush in the spring and brown and dry in the summer. They become dry because just like you and I they breath by exposing wet membranes to the air to take in CO2 and give off Oxygen. The 44% higher CO2 in our air today gives dryland grasses a big advantage, they get their CO2 more easily and thus don’t have to expose their wet membranes to the drying air nearly so much. This allows them to conserve the last of their precious water as they enter the dry season. Saving moisture means bushier and better cover the ground for a longer time. This is good for living things on Earth but very bad news for living things in the Ocean. Some of the soil our thriving grasslands cover was destined to become dust in the wind. The minerals in that dust sustains the plankton blooms, the grass of our ocean pastures, which today are in cataclysmic decline. Marine life that depends on the productivity of ocean pastures is disappearing in the same way animal life on land fails to thrive when our pastures are allowed to collapse.

It’s mostly the iron from the dust in the wind that our ocean plankton depend on as these two charts from NASA of declining dust borne iron in the oceans and declines of ocean pasture productivity reveal. Only downwind of the Sahara desert is dust on the rise due to global warming and desertification… everywhere else dust and iron for the oceans is disappearing fast. The second chart shows the devastating resulting collapse of ocean pasture productivity, “annual primary productivity.”

 

The collapse of ocean pastures due to the loss of dust that we’ve caused by collectively emitting nearly a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere will continue to worsen even if we are successful at slowing new fossil Co2 emissions into the air and oceans. The Co2 already emitted is a deadly overdose as far as life in the oceans is concerned. Only an antidote will save the oceans preventing a second deadly overdose from being administered is indeed important but FIRST we must save the patient from the first overdose.

 

 

 

 

 

Category introductions | Permalink | Comment (0)

ocean pastures as biological ecologies

November 13, 2012 – 6:11 pm

When we talk about ocean pastures, we need to agree on what this terminology refers to. In the context of the Haida Salmon Restoration Project, we are talking about the complex ecological systems of organisms that constitute inseparable networks of life forms in the open ocean.

The Oxford Dictionaries defines pasture as “land covered with grass and other low plants suitable for grazing animals, especially cattle or sheep.” If we think more deeply about the ecology of a pasture, we can think about earthworm activity, rainfall, the rhizomic organizational structure of different grasses, and the effect of grazing on pasture sustainability. In this sense, we would be thinking about the science of pastures as living organisms.

This is the approach we bring to the Haida Salmon Restoration Project. We consider the ocean a living organism, constituted by the interactivity of complex life forms within the environment of salt water. We approach the ocean as a pasture, an ecological system that supports multi-layers of life forms, including human beings. Implicit in the term ‘pasture’ is the idea of agriculture, of the transformation of wild spaces to serve domestic purposes. Sadly, without human intervention in the form of stewardship and management, human activity is generating unprecedented levels of atmospheric CO2 that are poisoning our oceans and threatening the dynamic life systems within.

In recent years, researchers have been reporting the effects of increasing levels of atmospheric CO2 and the commensurate decrease of seawater pH. It stands to reason that this change would have significant impact on ocean life. Over millennia, microscopic ocean organisms have evolved in a seawater bath of fairly constant pH. The life of these organisms is inseparable from the seawater they inhabit. As seawater pH levels change, the living processes that sustain these organisms are going to be affected. For example, one study found decreasing seawater pH affected the strength of barnacle shells. As pH levels decreased, the barnacle shell plates were weakened and required significantly less force to break. This is important, because weakened barnacle wall shells mean barnacles are going to be more vulnerable to predators [McDonald, M. R., McClintock, J. B., Amsler, C. D., Rittschof, D., Angus, R. A., Orihuela, B. et al. (2009). Effects of ocean acidification over the life history of the barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser, 385, 179-187.]

 The people of the Haida Nation noticed that, despite their efforts to send more and more salmon hatchlings to the open sea, they were facing increasing disappointing returns. They decided to investigate the life of salmon and understand how they might cultivate, and ensure the life, of their ocean pastures.
Category introductions | Permalink | Comment (0)

Next Page »

Next Page »