OOI Deployment and Maintenance at Station Papa
(Click to enlarge) Location of the high latitude, Global Station Papa Array. (Credit: OOI Cabled Array program and Center for Environmental Visualization, University of Washington)
The Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) team in June 2014 conducted deployment and scheduled maintenance activities for the global component of the OOI infrastructure located in the Ocean Station Papa site, in the Gulf of Alaska.
The OOI team, led by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, with their partners at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, embarked on an approximately two-week cruise starting June 10 to recover equipment deployed in summer 2013 and deploy new equipment. The cruise, on the Scripps/U.S. Navy Research Vessel (R/V) Melville departed and returned from the University of Washington dock in Seattle, WA. During the cruise, the team deployed one Global Profiler Mooring, two Flanking Moorings and one Open-Ocean Glider. A total of 44 oceanographic instruments were deployed. Additionally, the team successfully recovered all previously deployed moorings and the two previously deployed Open Ocean Gliders.
The Station Papa Array is one of four sites in the OOI focusing on the critical, yet under-sampled, high-latitude regions of the Pacific and Atlantic. It includes a network of moorings that will support sensors for measurement of physical, biological and chemical properties throughout the water column. Additionally, the array at Station Papa is occupied in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which maintains a surface mooring there.