Watch Pioneer Relocation Update
Dr. Albert Plueddemann, senior scientist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and principal investigator for the Coastal and Global Scale Nodes of the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), was the featured speaker at the April 2023 “Science on the Sound” Lecture Series at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus. Dr. Plueddemann presented information on an exciting new research ocean observing array headed to the offshore waters of the Outer Banks. Relocation of the Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer Array happened on April 20. For those who couldn’t attend in person, the presentation can be watched here.
The OOI Pioneer Array was envisioned as a re-locatable coastal array to investigate physical and biochemical exchange processes on the continental shelf and upper slope.The array infrastructure includes moorings, gliders, and AUVs. The Array was previously sited on the New England Shelf (NES), centered at the shelfbreak south of Martha’s Vineyard, MA.
The new MAB site represents a different environment than the New England Shelf location and offers opportunities to collect data on a variety of cross-disciplinary science topics, including cross-shelf exchange and Gulf Stream influences, land-sea interactions associated with large estuarine systems, a highly productive ecosystem with major fisheries, processes driving biogeochemical cycling and transport, and fresh-water outflows during extreme rain events.
Watch the presentation here.
Dr. Al Plueddemann
