Projects bring scientific diversity to cruise
Amy Warren
In addition to helping with water collection activities
for the NEGOM project, several students and scientists used their spare
time to work on other oceanography projects.
Graduate student Tina Bernal collected data for her
dissertation, and graduate students Ou Wang and Gaston Gonzales will use
the NEGOM data for future projects.
Dr. David Wylie of Texas A&M's Geochemical and Environmental
Research Group collected samples of air polluted by raging fires in Mexico
and Central American forests.
Also aboard were student researchers from Texas A&M
University-Galveston, the University of Colorado, the University of South
Florida, and the National University of Mexico in Mexico City. Their projects,
described below, include work with ocean satellites and counting the gulf's
marine mammals.
Mammal watchers keep six eyes on the sea
Marine Mammals Research Program observers joined the
NEGOM cruise to obtain data on the distribution and abundance of marine
mammals and compare them with the hydrographic processes of the region.
The students from Texas A&M University-Galveston were Joel G. Ortega
Ortiz, a Ph.D. student, and Cathy Zoller, an undergraduate. Alberto Delgado-Estrella
volunteered from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
(National University of Mexico).
From the flying bridge-the highest point of the ship
you can reach without climbing a mast-the students recorded 74 sightings
of marine mammals and identified the species of mammal in 51 out of 74 total
sightings during the cruise. The species, in descending order of number
of records, were: bottlenose dolphin, Atlantic spotted dolphin, pantropical
spotted dolphin, spinner dolphin, striped dolphin, killer whale, humpback
whale, melon headed whale, and pigmy sperm whale.
Researcher Alberto Delgado-Estrella uses huge binoculars to spot mammals.
Smoky air gives rise to pollution experiment
During the NEGOM cruise, the Gyre encountered smoke from Mexican and
Central American forest fires blown more than 1,200 kilometers across the
Gulf of Mexico.
Measurements of elevated organic contaminants are few
to non-existent in the NEGOM study region, so Dr. David Wylie, aboard the
ship to assist with CTD measurements, seized the opportunity to collect
air samples for future study of organic contaminants.
The long-range transport of dioxins and hydrocarbon
compounds-including PCBs, PAHs, PCDD/PCDF-could have an environmental impact
in the NEGOM study region. Air sample collections on other NEGOM cruises
will investigate any seasonal variations.
The research is an extension of organic contaminant
investigations by the Geochemical and Environmental Research Group (GERG)
as part of the Texas Regional Integrated Atmospheric Deposition Study (TRIADS)
at a site in Galveston, and also at Corpus Christi Bay though the EPA-sponsored
Corpus Christi Bay National Estuary Program.
Engineer joins cruise to experience oceanography
Suzanne Barth volunteered to collect oxygen samples on the NEGOM cruise-but
her regular job is designing instrument packages for a satellite that measures
sea-surface height.
The graduate student in aerospace engineering at University
of Colorado-Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research said she
will compare salinity and density data from the CTDs with data from the
TOPEX/Poseidon satellite. She emphasized the importance of scientists and
engineers working together.
"When you put together an instrument package, you
have a whole team of scientists and engineers. Engineers have many restraints,
but scientists have their wish lists," Suzanne said. "Without
the scientists, the engineers have no reason to be here, and without engineers,
the scientists can't do anything. I love my job. I think of it as a team
sport."
USF students calibrate ocean color satellite 'SeaWIFS'
Two students from the University of South Florida were aboard the Gyre
to help calibrate a satellite receiver that senses ocean color. The satellite,
called SeaWIFS (Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor), gives information
about the ocean's productivity and interactions between the ocean ecosystems
and the atmosphere.
Denis Nadeau and Bisman Nababan will compare SeaWIFS'
estimates of chlorophyll in the ocean to the actual concentration of chlorophyll
measured in the water. They also are interested in the amount of particulate
organic matter and dissolved organic carbon in the surface water, because
they affect the satellite's estimates of chlorophyll; and the amount of
light scattered and absorbed through the water column and the radiant light
energy passing through the surface.
The SeaWIFS web site is http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS.html.
Denis Nadeau and Bisman Nababan discuss their digital camera.
