Dr. Dean Grubbs, Dr. Chip Cotton, and crew recently returned from a 10-day Deep-C fish ecology cruise in the Gulf of Mexico, where they caught their third specimen (since 2012) of a skate believed to be a new species.
Madison Fish, a 15-year-old International Baccalaureate student at Rutherford High School in Panama City, Florida, has spent a significant amount of time dealing with slime. Hagfish slime that is.
Researchers from the FSU Coastal and Marine Lab and the University of North Florida returned to port on August 5th after completing the maiden extended day voyage aboard the Research Vessel Apalachee. The purpose of the trip was to study deep sea fish communities of the northern Gulf of Mexcio and examine these organisms for exposure to and metabolism of toxins that may be related to the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout.
The time has come! Last week the Deep-C team picked up the sailbuoy, recently named "ArgoKnot", after its two month long journey in the Gulf of Mexico. Read the blog to discover the meaning behind the sailbuoy's newly-appointed name. "ArgoKnot" had a purpose to its sailing journey and that was to measure and record temperature, salinity, and dissolved oxygen. Although it had a few stalls, having to fight some strong wind, currents, and waves, along the way, it made great progress and followed fairly closely to its predetermined path. This project serves as a trial for future sailbuoy projects. Scientists who worked on the "ArgoKnot" hope to install additional sensors and record more extensive data about the Gulf. They hope that in the unfortunate event of another oil spill, that a sailbuoy will prove an invaluable tool for monitoring the evolution of the surface spill. See the complete journey of "ArgoKnot" here.
WPBT2's Changing Seas "Creatures of the Deep" documentary will be premiered at the FSU Coastal & Marine Lab's Open House on April 20, 2013. This episode features FSUCML scientists, grad students, and technicians conducting Deep-C related research on the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on deep sea creatures in the Gulf.
Dr. Nico Wienders, a research faculty member in the Florida State University Department of Earth Ocean and Atmospheric Science, led an expedition onboard the R/V APALACHEE to launch a sailbuoy that will traverse the Gulf of Mexico over the next two months, gathering data that will help us understand how the oil moved from the Macondo well to the shorelines of states bordering the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, from Louisiana to Florida.
The Deep-C Fisheries Ecology Team (Dr. Dean Grubbs, Dr. Chris Koenig, and Dr. Felicia Coleman) are offshore conducting research from the shelf-edge to the deep sea onboard the Florida Institute of Oceanography's research vessel, the RV WEATHERBIRD II. In between the all day and all night longline and trap sets, the cataloging of specimens, and everything else that goes along with a vigorous field program, they are taking turns writing a blog that appears on the Deep-C website and will continue on their trip from 8-17 October 2012. Check back often to find out what's going on.