UW News

April 11, 1997

Student oceanographers to experience shipboard research April 16- 18

News and Information

Undergraduates with the University of Washington’s School of Oceanography will have a chance this month to learn about shipboard research while gathering data about the waters west of Everett for the Washington State Department of Ecology.

Thirty-two students and five researchers will make a comprehensive study of the waters April 16 through 18. Working 24 hours a day aboard the UW’s research vessel the Clifford A. Barnes, shifts of students will collect water samples, measure temperature and salinity gradients and sample seabed sediments. Students will work alongside UW researchers to analyze the samples and data in coming weeks.

The ecology will enter the students’ information into the database it uses to track the health and dynamics of Puget Sound.

Goals of the project are to:

Describe tidal variation and currents and their effect on biological and chemical components of the water.

Gather information about plankton including biomass variations, how much oxygen is produced and consumed, and community dynamics.

Document the nightly migration of euphausids (shrimp-like crustaceans) that live in deep waters but move to the surface each night to eat microscopic organisms.

Evaluate how sediment moves between the Snohomish River delta and Gedney Island.

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