July 2000: Pam Rogers, Editor
What Kind of Car is That?!
Leigh Evans of the NOAA VENTS Program has a very distinctive car, and it's not just the color or design. He is the proud owner of one of the first gas-electric drive train vehicles in Oregon. It is not an electric car as such, one that runs on batteries, nor does it need to be plugged in to recharge. The electric motor assists the gasoline engine, which can then be reduced to the size of a motorcycle engine. It is twice as efficient as his old car. Leigh points out that the reason modern cars have so much horsepower is for accelerating. They need far less once they have reached the desired cruising speed and simply maintain at that pace (e.g. 50 hp for cruising, 250 hp for fast acceleration). The amount of weight carried in the vehicle is also a major factor.His two-person Honda Insight hatchback has only been available for six months in the U.S. and is a technological showpiece for the next generation of fuel-efficient cars. Leigh gets up to 70 mpg if he is on a freeway, especially following an eighteen-wheeler. The Insight has a ten-gallon tank, which works out to 700 miles per tank under optimal conditions, and uses regular.
When asked about the color, Leigh confesses that although he toyed with the idea of pull-me-over-officer red, he settled for the tennis-ball green. (The Honda folks really want this car to be noticed !) What's the next step? Fuel cell vehicles that are three times as efficient as gasoline engines. Perhaps that will be seen here at the HMSC first as well...
Hatfield Marine Science Center Presents Deep Sea Volcano Research
Much scientific information is known about above-ground volcanoes such as Mt. St. Helens, but there is another type of volcano that has been erupting near the Oregon coast about which scientists know far less. That will change soon. On June 27, the R/V Ron Brown will pull into Newport's Hatfield Marine Science Center to load about 30 ocean researchers from NOAA's Vents program and much equipment. On June 29, the team will travel to the permanent seafloor observatory NeMO (New Millennium Observatory) that was established in 1998 to study the deep sea mount "Axial". Axial, located along the seismically active Juan de Fuca Ridge, erupted most recently in January 1998.Also on board the research vessel will be Jeff Goodrich, a teacher from Lake Oswego High School. During the cruise, that lasts until July 17, Goodrich will relay daily reports back to the Hatfield Marine Science Center.
Mike Goodrich, a retired school teacher, and Jeff's father, will present these reports to the public in live updates at the HMSC Visitor Center. At these daily sessions, offered at 12:00 noon and 3:00 p.m. throughout the summer, HMSC visitors can learn about the scientific data being gathered, can see photographs and video clips taken from remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) at the eruption site, and can actually ask the scientists questions about the expedition. The reports will also be posted on a website that can be accessed in the Visitor Center Resource Room. The website is http://newport.pmel.noaa.gov/nemo/realtime.
NeMO is located at the summit of a large submarine volcano that sits on a portion of the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a several hundred-mile-long volcanically active seam in the Earthıs crust that lies 200-300 miles off the Oregon and Washington coasts at depths of one to two miles. The main objective at NeMO, which consists of a wide variety of monitoring and sampling systems, is to understand and provide access to a huge community of unique organisms that live beneath the seafloor and thrive at temperatures that can exceed 100 degrees Centigrade. As scientists study the immense diversity of this new kingdom of organisms, it becomes apparent that these heat-loving creatures have a wide variety of potential biotechnical and pharmaceutical applications.
This is the third summer that NOAA Vents personnel will be investigating the Axial Volcano. Using remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs), the scientific crew will sample the water at the vent sites to see what changes in chemistry have occurred in the hydrothermal vent fluids. ROVs enable on-board scientists to survey, sample and photograph the region in real-time, with great precision and great detail. ROVs can do virtually anything a manned submersible can, but has the major advantage of being able to stay submerged for much longer than conventional manned research submarines.
Scientists also plan to map the ocean floor with a scanning-sonar system to see if the volcano's caldera is spreading. Last year's expedition mapped the northern portion of the eruption, and this summer will focus on the southern rift zone. It appears the type of eruption changed dramatically between the two zones, from sheet flows in the north to pillow lava in the south.
The crew will also recover instruments, such as time-lapse cameras, OSMO samplers (used for long-term fluid sampling), temperature records, and bacterial traps left at Axial last summer, and will deploy new instruments.
A NeMO Net camera system and buoy, a prototype that allows communication from shore to the seafloor via acoustic modem and satellite links, will also be deployed at the site. This system is capable of two-way communication, so scientists can send commands from shore to the seafloor and get data back immediately. This is the first step toward being able to have an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) stationed at Axial in the future.
During the NeMO cruise, displays in the HMSC Visitor Center will feature
deep sea mineral specimens collected on earlier scientific expeditions,
displays on research vessels, marine geology, plate tectonics, undersea
vents and the animals that live there. The Visitor Center is open daily
10:00-5:00. Call 541/867-0271 for more information.
Summer Interns Roll Up Their Sleeves
Three new summer interns have been trained and are now busy at work in the Visitor Center.
Mariah Baker just graduated from OSU in Biological/Environmental Science and is looking into a career in museum interpretation. She speaks Thai and has spent a term in northeast Thailand as part of her undergraduate work. Mariah is used to the heat, as she is from Houston, Texas.
Stuart Clausen is a senior in Zoology at OSU and hails from Cedar Falls, Iowa. His love of the water shows up in a number of ways beside his interest in marine science. He plays water polo and is a certified SCUBA diver. However, he also has a strong musical bent, singing in choirs and playing the trumpet.
Amy Stacey is also SCUBA certified and is a sophomore at OSU in Zoology/Marine Biology. She enjoys the practical experience and has been a work study this past year. Unlike her colleagues, she comes from Gresham, Oregon.
In addition to helping with general interpretation and visitor service, the three have special projects they work on as time and crowds permit.
The Effect of Light on Fish Investigated by NMFS Alaska
Experimental Bycatch Studies
Laboratory investigations have been conducted on the behavioral and physiological effects of stress associated with capture by towing and hooking in commercially important marine fish including walleye pollock, sablefish and halibut. Capture by trawl gear or on a longline is simulated using unique temperature-controlled sea water tanks that were designed and constructed at the HMSC. Post-capture recovery of fish is measured in large temperature-controlled experimental tanks which duplicate temperatures experienced by fish inhabiting waters of northern California to Alaska throughout the year. Results to date have shown that: 1) walleye pollock towed in a net under dark conditions in the laboratory and the field are not able to orient or avoid meshes of the net, resulting in greater injury and death than under lighted conditions; 2) sablefish and halibut are less sensitive than walleye pollock to capture by towing or hooking; 3) elevated sea water and air temperatures magnify stress and mortality resulting from capture, with sablefish being less sensitive than halibut to elevated temperatures. Management of these fishery stocks should account for the probable increase in mortality of bycatch caught during seasons when ocean and air temperatures are elevated. Differences observed in vulnerability to capture stress and post-capture survival and recovery among species thus far studied indicate that generalizations across species are not appropriate.
Visual Capabilities of Juvenile Fishes
Experiments have been conducted in a continuing effort to examine how ambient light influences the ability of juvenile walleye pollock and sablefish to feed, school and avoid predators. Specialized infrared monitoring systems developed for this research have allowed experimentation with the fish under the full range of light levels which they encounter at various depths in the ocean, day or night. For example, although they are highly visual foragers, both juvenile walleye pollock and sablefish are capable of feeding upon planktonic prey in complete darkness. This capability may play a vital role in their feeding, growth and survival during periods of prolonged darkness, such as winter at high latitudes, or at depths where light is minimal. Experiments on the role of light in behavior are also aiding in the design of experiments to explore the interactions between fish and commercial fishing gear, with the goal of reducing bycatch. Preliminary experiments have been completed which examine how light influences the ability of undersized walleye pollock to negotiate their way through the codend of a trawl. These experiments demonstrate that when fish can see the approaching net, they are herded along in front of it, but when they do pass through the net, they do so quickly, with limited mesh contact. In contrast, in darkness fish are unable to orient relative to the net and strike the mesh more frequently before through-passage, potentially resulting in greater injury. This suggests that the impact of through-passage upon under-sized fish may vary with the time of day and depth at which the trawl is towed. Subsequent experiments will address such questions as: how does stress associated with passage through a trawl influence the ability of juvenile fish to feed, school and avoid predators? The answers to these questions will prove crucial in understanding and developing strategies aimed at reducing the retention of under-sized fish and minimizing the unintended impact of commercial fishing gear upon fish stocks.
Influence of Environmental Factors on Behavior
Larval and age-0 sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria) reside in surface waters of the North Pacific during spring and summer. They typically occur offshore from the zone influenced by upwelling and thus may be susceptible to elevated temperatures associated with global warming. We are currently investigating a number of ecological responses to varied temperatures in conjunction with other potentially interacting environmental variables such as food availability. In laboratory experiments, we measured growth rates under high and low ration levels and a range of temperatures from 6 to 24oC. With unlimited food growth increased as temperature increased, with a plateau at 14 to 22oC. A similar response was observed at low rations, although at lower overall growth rates. However, a severe decline in growth occurred for both ration levels at 24oC, and few fish survived the 3 week experiments. The upper thermal limit for growth in small sablefish coincides closely with their upper limit for survival, with a sharp demarcation between favorable growth conditions and intolerable temperatures.
In another set of experiments we measured the efficiency with which sablefish converted food into biomass on a dry weight basis. We monitored consumption rates and growth of fish held at temperatures of 6 to 22oC and high or low rations levels, then calculated gross growth efficiency. There was a clear interactive effect of temperature with ration level. At ad libitum rations growth efficiency reached a plateau between 16 and 20oC and declined at 22oC, whereas at low rations growth efficiency was highest at 10oC. We also conducted behavioral observations in thermally stratified water columns, where fish conditioned to one of four ration levels were able to select among a broad range of temperatures. As ration level decreased, sablefish moved increasingly into colder water. This response is in agreement with an energy conserving strategy, whereby fish reduce their metabolic rates by reducing their body temperature when food levels are insufficient to support the energetic costs of higher temperatures. In the past 18 years, average monthly sea surface temperatures off Newport, Oregon exceeded 18oC only during the extreme El Niño year of 1997. These results suggest that local populations of juvenile sablefish are capable of tolerating and thriving under the 1 to 3.5oC increases in temperature predicted by global warming scenarios, with the critical caveat that sufficient food resources must be available. If, as some climate predictions suggest, global warming is accompanied by reducing upwelling and lower levels of primary production, increased temperatures may have negative consequences for sablefish and other species occurring in surface waters.
Visiting School Groups Double This Year
by Vicki Osis
Sea Grant's efforts to improve marine education in Oregon took a leap forward this school year. The number of students participating in our school field trip program, at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, more than doubled this year. We offer an extensive selection of laboratory and field instruction at the center for students of all ages.The typical visiting school group, often up to 120 kids, are broken into teaching units of 30 students for "hands-on" centered teaching. Intensive instruction, in our running seawater laboratories, focus on classes that discuss classification systems, anatomy, and adaptation of creatures to the marine environment, or programs that allow students to follow the research programs at the Hatfield Center.
The programs present basic science concepts using live marine creatures and local beach and field settings to illustrate scientific concepts. In addition to our basic science programs the marine education program presented numerous marine career job shadow programs that focus on careers in marine sciences.
The growth in numbers this year is a tribute to the professional quality of programs we present. Teacherıs who brought their class to the center last year, returned this year with all of the seventh or fifth grade classes. We will be offering promotional half price days, during the slow winter months, to attract many schools who otherwise could not afford the programs.
We are very pleased with this yearıs results and plan to build on our
success for the next school year. For a look at our programs visit our web
site at http://www.hmsc.orst.edu/edprog/index.html and select school
programs.
New Online Reference Service Coming to OSU Libraries
The OSU Libraries will launch EBSCOHost, a new online reference service, on July 1. EBSCOHost will replace the Information Access electronic databases (Academic Index, Health Reference Center, General Business File, etc.). The decision to switch was made after careful comparisons and evaluations of several online reference sources by a statewide database licensing group that negotiates reduced rates for consortial contracts. Most academic and public libraries in Oregon will be making this switch at the same time.EBSCOHost has a number of features that searchers will find useful:
EBSCOHost will include the following reference databases:
For questions and more information about EBSCOHost, please contact Janet Webster (7-0108).
Congratulations to Janet Webster, HMSC Librarian, for her promotion to Associate Professor, and to Kate Stafford, NOAA VENTS, for her promotion to Senior Research Assistant!
Congratulations also to Randy Walker, Physical Plant Manager, on his graduation from Evergreen State College in Olymnpia,Washington! Randy earned his B. A. with the area of focus in public administration.
John Vostinak, Physical Plant, has decided that he is tired of being cold and will be leaving the HMSC to move to Phoenix, Arizona--in July! He should be plenty warm there and we wish him well.