Andrea Schmuttermair: Collecting Data, June 30, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Andrea Schmuttermair
Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
June 22 – July 3

Mission: Groundfish Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico
Date: June 30, 2012

Ship  Data from the Bridge
Latitude: 2830.05N
Longitude: 8955.4W
Speed: 10 knots
Wind Speed: 7.11
Wind Direction: S/SW
Surface Water Salinity: 29.3
Air Temperature: 28.4C
Relative Humidity: 63%
Barometric Pressure: 1012 mb
Water Depth: 257.19m

Don’t forget to follow the Oregon II at: www.shiptracker.noaa.gov

Science and Technology Log

This is the fish board we use for measuring each critter in our sample.

Now that we’ve talked about how we collect, sort, and measure our catch, let’s take a closer look at the way we measure, weigh and sex our critters.

When measuring the critters, we use a fish board that is activated by a magnetic wand to measure the animal to the nearest millimeter.

When the fish is placed on the measuring line, we touch the magnetic wand to the board and the length is recorded into our computer program, FSCS (Fisheries Scientific Computer System).

Depending on the type of fish we catch, there are different ways to measure it.

Here is Alex measuring the total length of our scorpion fish.

This is how we would measure a fish for its standard length, which is just before the tail fin starts.

This is how we would measure a fish for its fork length.

For fish such as this cutlassfish, we measure the length from the head down to the anus, as seen here on the board.

When we are done measuring, the fish is placed on a scale to determine its weight to the nearest gram. When we confirm the weight of the fish, that weight is automatically put in the computer for us- no need to enter it manually.

Our last task is to determine the sex of the fish. For many fish, this is done by making an incision in the belly of the fish from their anus to their pelvic fins. It’s easiest to determine the sex when it is a female with eggs. In the males, you can see milt, or sperm, which is a milky white color.

This is a male fish. Notice the arrow pointing to the testes.

Here we have a female fish.

For the flatfish, you can see the female’s ovaries when you hold the fish up to the light. Males lack this feature.

This is a male flat fish.

Here we have a female flat fish- notice her gonads.

Because we were catching quite a few shrimp earlier in the leg, I got pretty good at sexing the shrimp. Remember, we take samples of 200 for each type of shrimp, and we often had more than one type of shrimp in each trawl. Male shrimp have a pestama on their first pleura to attach onto the females. The females are lacking this part. Although it’s not necessarily an indication of sex, on average the female shrimp tend to be larger than the males.

Here is a male shrimp.

Here we have a female shrimp, which is lacking a pestama.

You  know from my previous post what we do with the data we gather from the shrimp, but what about the other fish? With the other fish and critters we catch, we use the data to compare the distribution across the Gulf and to compare it to the historical data we’ve collected in the past to look for trends and changes.

Sometimes scientists also have special requests for samples of a certain species. Some scientists are doing diet studies to learn more about what certain types of fish eat.  Other studies include: species verification, geographic range extensions, age and growth, and distribution. Through our program, we have the ability to create tags for the scientists requesting the samples, allowing us to bag and freeze them to send to labs when we return to land.

There are 2 communal showers for our use on the bottom deck.

Personal Log

I’ve had a few people ask me what the living quarters and the food is like on the ship, so I wandered around the ship with my camera the other day to snap some shots of the inside of the Oregon II. There are 17 staterooms on board. Most of the staterooms are doubles, such as mine, and are equipped with bunk beds to sleep on. It makes me reminisce of my days at camp, as it’s been a while since I’ve slept on a bunk bed! We have a sink and some cabinets to store our belongings. Once a week they do room inspections to ensure our rooms are neat and orderly. Most importantly, they want to make sure that our belongings are put away. If we hit rough waters, something such as a water bottle could become a dangerous projectile.

Walter, doing what he loves

My stateroom is on the bottom deck, where there are also communal showers and toilets for us to use. We can do our laundry down here, providing the seas aren’t too rough. Most of the staterooms are on this bottom deck, as the upper 2 levels are the “living areas” of the ship. On the main deck is the galley, where we eat all our meals, or where we head to when we are trying to make it through the shift to grab a snack or a cup of coffee. This tends to be right around 4:30/5:00am for me, especially when we aren’t too busy. I’ve gotten used to the night shift now, but it still can be tiring, especially when we have a long wait in between stations. Our stewards take very good care of us, and there is always something to snack on. Meals have been pretty tasty too, with plenty of fresh seafood. My favorite!

Junie, one of the NOAA Corps officers, working in the chart room on the navigational charts

On the top deck we have the lounge, a place where we hang out in between shifts. We have quite a good movie selection on board, but to be honest we haven’t had the time to take advantage of it. They’ve kept us very busy on our shifts so far, and today is one of the first days we’ve had a lot of downtime. Outside we also have some workout equipment- a bike and a rowing machine- to use on our off time. When you set the rowing machine out on deck, it’s almost like you are rowing right on the ocean!

LT Harris, LT Miller, and Chris getting ready for the dive. Jeff and Reggie help them prepare.

The other day, 2 of the NOAA Corps officers, LT Harris and LT Miller (who is also the XO for the Oregon II) and 2 of the deck crew, Chris and Tim, got ready to go out on a dive. NOAA Corps officers need to do a dive once a month to keep up their certification. Sometimes they may need to fix something that is wrong with the boat, and other dives are to practice certain dive skills. They dove in the Flower Gardens, which is a national marine sanctuary with a wide diversity of sea life. I was hoping they’d see a whale shark, but no such luck. We stopped all operations for the duration of their dive.

Favorite Catch of the Day: Here are a few cool critters we pulled up today. In addition to these critters, we also started seeing some sea stars, lots of scallops, and a variety of shells.

An angel shark

How about some jelly soup?
(there are about 500 jellies in there!)

Southern Flounder

A roundel skate

Critter Query: This isn’t a critter question today, but rather a little bit of NOAA trivia. 

What is the oldest ship in the NOAA fleet and where is its home port?

Don’t forget to leave your answers in the comments below!

Andrea Schmuttermair: Eager Anticipation from Land-locked Colorado, June 7, 2012

NOAA Teacher at Sea
Andrea Schmuttermair
Aboard NOAA Ship Oregon II
June 22 – July 3, 2012

Mission: Groundfish Survey
Geographical area of cruise: Gulf of Mexico (between Galveston TX and Pascagoula, MS)
Date: June 7, 2012

Personal Log (pre-cruise)

What does

      +     +       =   ?

That’s right! Ms. Schmuttermair is heading to sea this summer as a participant in NOAA’s Teacher at Sea Program!

Me and my forever hiking pal, Wesson

Hi! My name is Andrea Schmuttermair, and I am a 3-6 grade science teacher at The Academy in Westminster, CO.  I just finished up my first year in this position, and absolutely love engaging my students in important science concepts. Outside of the classroom, I can be found hiking, biking, and exploring the mountains of beautiful Colorado with my dog, Wesson.

Growing up in San Diego, CA, I would definitely consider myself an “ocean lover”. I grew up spending countless hours at the beach, checking out the sea life that washed up in the tide pools and snorkeling in La Jolla Cove. When I heard about the Teacher at Sea program, I knew it was right up my alley. Living in land-locked Colorado, I strive to bring both my love and knowledge of the ocean to my students. One of the most memorable teaching moments for me this year was seeing my 3^rd graders have that “Aha!” moment when they realized what we do here in Colorado greatly affects our oceans, even though they are hundreds of miles away.

Now, in just a couple short weeks, I will  don my sea legs, leave dry land behind, and set sail on the Oregon II. The Oregon II, one of NOAA’s 11 fishery vessels, conducts fishery and marine research to help ensure that our fish population in the ocean is sustainable. Fishery vessels work with the National Marine Fisheries Service to provide important information about fish populations and what regulations about fishing practices need to be in place.

This summer, we will be conducting the summer groundfish survey, a survey that has been conducted for the past 30 years. This particular survey is conducted during the summer months between Alabama and Mexico. On this second leg of the survey, we will be sailing from Galveston, TX to the Oregon II’s home port of Pascagoula, MS.

What exactly is a groundfish survey, you ask? When I first received my acceptance letter, they informed me that this was the “critter cruise”, and I, being the critter lover, was thrilled! The main goal of this survey is to determine the abundance and distribution of shrimp by depth. In addition to collecting shrimp samples, we may also collect samples of bottomfish and crustaceans. It will also be important to collect meteorological data while out at sea. I am excited to see what kind of critters we pull up!

Ms. Schmuttermair LOVES critters, as seen here with Rosy the scorpion.

How will we be catching all of these critters and collecting data while out at sea? The Oregon II has a variety of devices to help collect information about the ocean, including bottom trawls and a CTD. The bottom trawl is a large net that is towed to collect shrimp and other bottom dwellers that will be sorted once the catch is brought aboard. A CTD (stands for Conductivity, Temperature, and Depth) is an instrument that can collect a wide variety of data, including temperature, salinity and oxygen content. I can’t wait to learn how some of these tools are operated!

What are my goals while out at sea?

• To learn as much about the environment I am in as possible.
• To ask the scientists plenty of questions about their research, and why collecting data is so important.
• To take many pictures to bring back to my students
• To get to know the crew on board, and how they came to work on the Oregon II
• Not getting seasick!

Now it’s your turn: What would YOU like to know more about? Is it more about the animals we bring up in our trawls? Maybe it’s to learn more about life on the Oregon II, and specifications about this ship. Perhaps you’d like to know how to become a scientist with NOAA and work on board one of their many ships.  Leave your questions in the “Comments” section below (you are welcome to do this in any of my entries), and I’ll do my best to answer them!

Don’t forget to keep an eye out for the challenge questions, which from this point forward I will refer to as the “Critter Query”.

Sue Zupko: 11 Belts and Suspenders

NOAA Teacher at Sea: Sue Zupko
NOAA Ship: Pisces
Mission: Extreme Corals 2011; Study deep water coral and its habitat off the east coast of FL
Geographical Area of Cruise: SE United States from off Mayport, FL to St. Lucie, FL
Date: June 7, 2011
Time: 10:00 EDT

Weather Data from the Bridge
Position: 27.3°N 79.6°W
Present weather: 4/8 Alto cumulus
Visibility: 10 n.m.
Wind Direction: 082°
Wind Speed: 4 kts
Surfacel Wave Height: 2-3 ft
Swell Wave Direction: 100° true
Swell Wave Height: 2-3 ft
Surface Water Temperature: 27.1°
Barometric Pressure: 1014.5mb
Water Depth: 80m
Salinity: 36.56 PSU
Wet/Dry Bulb: 27.2/24

This blog runs in chronological order.  If you haven’t been following, scroll down to “1 Introduction to my Voyage on the Pisces” and work your way back.

The first ROV we used on the Pisces for our Extreme Corals 2011 expedition is a custom designed craft called The Arc.  The crew, led by Dr. John Butler at the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, has been developing The Arc since 2007 and launched it in January of 2011.  The Arc is ideal for monitoring fisheries, improving species identification, and developing new methods of studying fisheries.  It can withstand pressures and dive to 1000 meters (actually it dives to 600 meters since that is how long the tether is).  When on land, it weights 264 kg (580 pounds).  It has a rectangular prism shape with a length of 190 cm (75 in), width of 117 cm (46 in), and a height of 84 cm (33 in).  Just for fun, do this math quiz.

 The pilot sits on the ship and tells The Arc what to do.  It’s like playing a video game.  The pilot and his navigator coordinate movements, watching the computer screen with the ship’s and The Arc’s positions clearly showing.  The navigator is in constant communication with the officers on the bridge of the Pisces using a walkie-talkie to relay messages and information between the ship’s pilot and the ROV’s pilot.  The bridge also has a navigation screen to monitor the position of the ship relative to the ROV.  The fishermen on the deck running the winch also have  walkie-talkies so they can be told when to adjust the length of the cable to the ROV.  Communication is very important.

Front of ROV

The ROV is pretty neat.  It has headlights similar to robots from old Sci-Fi movies so it appears creature-like, but without the spindly legs.  Bright lights are needed because that’s about the only light that is available at great depths.  There are four LED lights with 2600 lumens each.  A 100 watt incandescent light bulb in your lamp has about 1750 lumens.  How many lumens total does the ROV produce?  Again, doing the math it would be 2600×4=10,400 lumens for the ROV.  This is roughly twice as much as your four lightbulbs at home.   Looking at the pictures from the bottom of the sea where it is normally dark and the tiny amount of light reaching the bottom makes everything look dark blue or black (see my earlier post on light in the ocean) we can see the colors almost as they would appear in a tidal pool.

The ROV has many instruments to measure data and take photographs of what it “sees.”  It has a  CTD ( measures Conductivity, from which we calculate salinity,  Temperature, and Depth) as well as an oxygen sensor.  The best part is the laser beam system which measures things like a ruler.  With the help of the high definition camera, we were able to see the fish and invertebrates we were studying.  Using the laser beams, we could not only measure their size, but how far away they were.

Cancer borealis

Note the red dots parallel to each other.  The top two red ones are always 20 cm apart and in this picture the two on the bottom are 40 cm apart.  The green light helps measure the distance to the crab.  Apparently this crab is about 20 cm across.  The lasers are fabulous for helping to keep things in perspective.

ROV Tether

Dave Murfin, one of the ROV crew, was commenting to me about this picture after reading my blog.  He said the pink stuff was the foam jacket used for floatation cut off from an old ROV cable, and he thought it looked ugly.  However, given a new perspective of it, he thinks it looks cool.  The pink foam helps protect the tether on deck and if it scrapes across rocks on the ocean floor.  These ROV engineers added the large floats for the last 40 meters of the tether to keep it off the bottom and avoid becoming tangled in the coral and rocky habitats we are studying.

Spool of ROV tether

The tether for The Arc is wrapped on a spool for easy retrieval and transport.  It is 610 meters long and has three fiber optic cables in the center surrounded by insulation.  Around that are copper wires to conduct power from the ship, which is why they need a cable.  If it ran on a battery, like a submarine, it could be on the bottom alone and the scientists would have to wait for it to return to see what data was stored inside.  By using a tether, the scientists have much more control and can move the ship to study something of interest.  Although technology is rapidly advancing, it is not quite possible yet to create a vehicle which would do everything the scientists need.  Therefore, we continue to use the tether with the ROVs.

So, what do belts and suspenders have to do with the ROV?  Well, there is an old saying that you don’t rely on just one thing; you always have a backup.  If the belt on your pants doesn’t work, you have the suspenders to hold them up.  The Arc is a new system.  It is the belt and the system with 700+ dives to its credit is the spare (suspenders), just in case.   Technology.  It can be fabulous, but very frustrating when it gives you problems.  As a teacher, I have to plan for technology to be down as well.  I can’t have my whole lesson plan revolving around technology.  What if the internet is down that day?  Well, the students could get pretty wild without a back up plan.  As my mom used to say, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”  What if the basket dropped?  You are out of luck.

As I mentioned before in my blog, these men and women are dedicated professionals.  They have lots of experience with this equipment and know the unexpected can happen.  If you forecast about the unexpected, you can be prepared.  I have always known that duct tape is a useful tool.  Bungee cords are useful.  Redundant cables, nuts, bolts, and spare parts are all on board.  Having the spare ROV was just good planning and good sense.  We have still been able to work our mission with some modifications.  Bravo to this bunch for continuing to make things happen despite the unexpected happening.  Because of them, we have some wonderful video and photographs to see what is happening on the coral reefs we have been studying.

Scott Mau searches for necessary cables

And the answer to the poll at the beginning of this post is…less than 2 knots.  They really prefer currents less than 0.5 knots.  This week we’ve launched in currents which were 3.5 knots.  Sometimes it caused problems, sometimes not.  Here are some pictures from the bottom.

Purple barrel sponge

Sea Fan Octocoral

Black coral "forest", Stichopathes

Everyone keeps asking me if I have driven the ROV.  I asked the ROV crew about it and they all just smiled.  Although it looks like a video game, the ROV is not a toy and not to be given to a novice to control.  Considering I can’t get down the stream on Wii Fit without crashing into the side of the stream, they sure don’t want me at the helm of this incredible piece of technology.  With the ROV, there is no opportunity for a second chance if you crash and burn.  Therefore, I’ll leave the driving to them.

Teamwork. Kevin is piloting the ROV with the help of John and Dave.