Installation Continues and O&M Begins at the Endurance Array
(Click to enlarge) The Oregon shelf surface mooring is lowered to the water using the R/V Oceanus ship’s crane. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
On April 2nd, the R/V Oceanus left port in Newport, OR to continue installations of the OOI’s coastal Endurance Array as well as complete the array’s first Operations and Maintenance (O&M) cruise.
Over the next 10 days, the Oregon State University OOI team installed coastal surface moorings and gliders as well as completed the first O&M “turn” (recovery & redeployment) of moorings installed in October 2014 along the Oregon and Washington lines.
Specifically, the Endurance installation and O&M cruise completed the following objectives:
- Deployment of the Oregon Line Shelf & Slope Coastal Surface Moorings and the Washington Line Inshore, Shelf, & Slope Coastal Surface Moorings.
- Deployment of four Coastal Gliders: two shallow gliders (able to dive to 200m) were deployed to survey shelf/slope areas and two deep gliders (able to dive to 1000m) were deployed to survey further offshore beyond the mooring lines.
- Recovery/redeployment of the WA Offshore Wire-Following Profiler Mooring (deployed in April 2014)
- Recovery of the OR Shelf Coastal Surface-Piercing Profiler Mooring (deployed in March 2014) & deployment of the WA Inshore & Shelf Coastal Surface-Piercing Profiler Mooring.
“To me,” reflects Ed Dever, OOI Endurance Array Project Manager, “an overarching purpose of the Endurance Array is to enable better study of the long term physical, chemical and ecosystem changes in our coastal oceans that occur due to global climate change. It’s incredibly important, and with this deployment the Endurance Array is poised to contribute. Our success was made possible not just by the comprehensive preparation of our team and the superb support from the captain and crew of R/V Oceanus, but by the skills and dedication of engineers, technicians, ocean scientists, and managers over the last 5 years from across OOI including Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Raytheon Company, and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership.”
Deployments at the Endurance Array began in April 2014 with uncabled mooring and glider deployments (story here), continued through the summer with cabled mooring and seafloor package deployments (story here), and into the fall with the deployment of more uncabled moorings and gliders (story here). In total, the Endurance Array will contain 10 uncabled moorings, 3 cabled moorings, 2 instrumented seafloor packages, six gliders, and over 200 scientific instruments.
The Endurance Array network of cabled & uncabled fixed and mobile assets provides observations enabling insight into several important coastal processes including coastal upwelling, hypoxia, cross-shelf exchange, and eastern boundary current regimes.
Deployments continue at the coastal Pioneer Array off the coast of New England from the R/V Atlantis.
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- (Click to enlarge) The Oregon shelf surface mooring is lowered to the water using the R/V Oceanus ship’s crane. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
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- (Click to enlarge) The Oregon shelf surface mooring is released from the crane by EA science party field chief Walt Waldorf. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
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- (Click to enlarge) The Washington Shelf surface mooring trails the R/V Oceanus as the instrumented multifunction node (MFN) on the fantail is prepared to be lowered through the A-frame. Mate intern Sonia Brugger stows a cargo strap removed from the MFN. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
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- (Click to enlarge) Science party field chief Walt Waldorf (facing away from camera) and technician Chris Holm (in back of McLane profiler) prepare to attach the profiler to the Washington offshore profiler mooring. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
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- (Click to enlarge) Technician Chris Holm (left) and technician Tully Rohrer (right) prepare to lower the McLane profiler on the Washington offshore profiling mooring. Chris is directing the winch operator. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
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- (Click to enlarge) A near surface instrument frame. The near surface instrument frame sits about 7 meters beneath the surface mooring. It includes a wide variety of physical, chemical and bio-optical sensors. To mitigate biofouling, the frame has blue antifouling paint. Copper tubing and copper tape is used on instruments for the same purpose. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)
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- (Click to enlarge) Co-chief scientist Jon Fram (left) and technician Stuart Pearce (right) perform pre-deployment checks on the Washington shelf WET Labs profiler. The profiler is within the mesh-covered frame at the left of the image. The profiler anchor with dual line pack recovery system is the green frame behind Stuart. (Photo Credit: OOI Endurance Array Program, OSU)