Program Update – June 2014
Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) team last month conducted deployment and scheduled maintenance activities for the global component of the OOI infrastructure located in the Gulf of Alaska.
The global component of the OOI design includes a network of moorings at critical, yet under-sampled, high-latitude locations such as the Ocean Station Papa site in the North Pacific. A team lead 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 on June 10 to recover equipment deployed last summer 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 Mesoscale Flanking Moorings and one Open Ocean Glider. Additionally they successfully recovered all previously deployed moorings and the two previously deployed Open Ocean Gliders.
Click here to read more about the Station Papa site. Additional details on last month’s cruise will soon be updated on the OOI website.
In addition, the OOI team recently conducted testing of innovative, University of Washington-designed and built, moorings that will be installed as part of the cabled infrastructure of the OOI in Northeast Pacific. Testing went well and the moorings are slated to be installed during VISIONS ’14 cruise in June.
The upcoming VISIONS ’14 expedition to complete construction of the regional cabled component of the OOI in the Northeast Pacific will take place on the Research Vessel Thomas G. Thompson and will utilize the state-of-the-art underwater robotic vehicle, ROPOS. There will be seven legs during the course of the 83-day cruise, slated to begin July 13 and end Oct. 14.
Please visit the UW Interactive Oceans Website Here to get the most updated information on each leg of this exciting cruise.
Please continue to visit the OOI Website for the latest news on the program or Submit Comments or Question for the OOI Program.
