The Axial Base Shallow Profiler Mooring located near the base of the Axial Seamount at the far western edge of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, at ~2,600 meters water deep. Axial Seamount is the largest and most magmatically robust volcano on the Juan de Fuca Ridge The Axial Seamount is far from the continental shelf (>350 km) and represents an open-ocean or pelagic site in the continuum of observing scales represented in the OOI’s Cabled Array. Here, large-scale currents including the North Pacific Current, the subpolar gyre and the northern end of the California Current interact. These currents transport heat, salt, oxygen, and biota, all of which are crucial to the region’s ecosystem. However, their variability arises from forcing as varied as tides and winds to interannual (El Niño) to decadal (Pacific Decadal Oscillation) timescales. Because of its close proximity to the magmatically active volcano, instruments on the profiler may also capture perturbed water masses (e.g. megaplumes) resulting from underwater eruptions at the summit and along the flanks.

As with other Cabled Shallow Profiler Moorings, this mooring contains a Shallow Profiler (SF01A) and Platform Interface Controller (PC01A), hosted on a 12 ft across, 7 ton platform connected to the fiber-optic cable.  The Shallow Profiler houses 10 scientific instruments and is tethered to a winch that pays out fiber optic cable allowing the profiler to rise through the water column until a fixed depth below the oceans surface. The specific depth is determined by currents and wave conditions at the surface.  Eight instruments are also housed within the Platform Interface Controller mounted 200 m below the sea surface on the mooring platform.  The fiber-optic cable provides the mooring with up to 3000 watts power and 10 Gb communication bandwidth and is co-located with a Low-Power Jbox that collects complementary water column data near the seafloor.

Instruments

This site includes following instruments. To learn more about an instrument type, select its name on the left. To see the relevant data streams for a particular instrument, select the instrument code in the first column which will take you to the OOI Data Portal.

Instrument Depth Node Instrument
Class-Series
Make & Model
RS03AXPS-PC03A-4C-FLORDD303 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) 2-Wavelength Fluorometer (FLORDD) WET Labs - ECO Triplet-w
RS03AXPS-SF03A-3A-FLORTD301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) 3-Wavelength Fluorometer (FLORTD) WET Labs - ECO Triplet-w
RS03AXPS-PC03A-06-VADCPA301 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) 5-Beam Velocity Profiler (600 kHz) (VADCPA) Teledyne RDI - Workhorse custom 600 kHz 5 Beam
RS03AXPS-PC03A-08-HYDBBA303 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) Broadband Acoustic Receiver (Hydrophone) (HYDBBA) Ocean Sonics - icListen HF
RS03AXPS-PC03A-4A-CTDPFA303 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) CTD (CTDPFA) Sea-Bird - SBE 16plusV2
RS03AXPS-SF03A-2A-CTDPFA302 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) CTD (CTDPFA) Sea-Bird - SBE 16plusV2
RS03AXPS-PC03A-07-CAMDSC302 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) Digital Still Camera (CAMDSC) Kongsberg - Custom Digital Still Camera Assembly
RS03AXPS-PC03A-4A-DOSTAD303 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) Dissolved Oxygen (DOSTAD) Aanderaa - Optode 4831
RS03AXPS-SF03A-2A-DOFSTA302 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Dissolved Oxygen (DOFSTA) Sea-Bird - SBE 43
RS03AXPS-SF03A-4A-NUTNRA301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Nitrate (NUTNRA) Sea-Bird - Deep SUNA
RS03AXPS-SF03A-4F-PCO2WA301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) pCO2 Water (PCO2WA) Sunburst - SAMI-pCO2
RS03AXPS-SF03A-3C-PARADA301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PARADA) Satlantic - digital PAR
RS03AXPS-PC03A-4B-PHSENA302 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) Seawater pH (PHSENA) Sunburst - SAMI-pH
RS03AXPS-SF03A-2D-PHSENA301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Seawater pH (PHSENA) Sunburst - SAMI-pH
RS03AXPS-SF03A-4B-VELPTD302 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Single Point Velocity Meter (VELPTD) Nortek - Aquadopp
RS03AXPS-SF03A-3D-SPKIRA301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Spectral Irradiance (SPKIRA) Satlantic - OCR507 ICSW
RS03AXPS-SF03A-3B-OPTAAD301 5 to 200 meters Shallow Profiler (SF03A) Spectrophotometer (OPTAAD) WET Labs - AC-S
RS03AXPS-PC03A-05-ADCPTD302 200m 200m Platform (PC03A) Velocity Profiler (150kHz) (ADCPTD) Teledyne RDI - Workhorse Quartermaster Monitor 150kHz