![]() Plans are to collect the test moorings in the fall and prepare to install the Coastal Pioneer Array in 2024. ![]() This type of mooring contains a wire-following profiler that moves through the water column, continuously sampling ocean characteristics from about 75 feet below the surface to 75 feet above the sea floor. The team will be offshore for a week or so on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s vessel to map the seabed using sonar, perform remotely operated vehicle visual inspections and deploy the test moorings at two different depths.Ī surface mooring designed to examine coastal-scale phenomena and withstand the challenging conditions of shallow coastal environments will be deployed at 30 meters, or about 98 feet deep, according to the initiative.Ī coastal profiler mooring will be deployed at 600 meters, or 1,968.5 feet, deep. In addition to serving as project scientist for the Pioneer MAB Array, Plueddemann is the senior scientist in the Department of Physical Oceanography at Woods Hole. “We have had users ranging from high school students to commercial fishers,” he said. Plueddemann responded to Coastal Review in an email Tuesday evening while underway from Charleston that the data collected will be primarily used for research, but also made publicly available for anyone with an internet connection. The data collected by observing the ocean can help track, predict, manage and adapt to changes in the marine environment and coastal communities can use the data to prepare for floods and other natural disasters, according to the initiative. “We welcome researchers, educators, and industry members to reach out to us to explore ways we might work together to maximize the usefulness of the data.” Schematic drawing of the Pioneer MAB moored array to be deployed off the coast of Nags Head. “This new Pioneer Array location in the MAB offers many opportunities for scientists to obtain data to further their research, and will provide better insight into conditions in the area for a variety of stakeholders,” Al Plueddemann, project scientist for Ocean Observatories Initiative’s Coastal and Global Scale Nodes group at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said in a statement. The Ocean Observatories Initiative, which provides free access to a wide range of data collected from around the world’s oceans, is funded by the National Science Foundation through a cooperative agreement with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, an independent nonprofit dedicated to ocean research, exploration and education and based in Massachusetts. The science team headed out Tuesday on the research vessel Neil Armstrong for a test mooring and mapping cruise for the Pioneer Array Mid-Atlantic Bight, or MAB, from where the vessel was in dry dock for a hull inspection at Detyens Shipyard in North Charleston, South Carolina, according to a blog post Tuesday on the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution website. Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists and engineers are on their way to deploy test moorings off the coast of Nags Head to better understand conditions before relocating the Ocean Observatories Initiative’s Pioneer Array ocean-observing system, which most recently was collecting data about 75 nautical miles south of Martha’s Vineyard. Photo: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Pioneer Array is to be relocated to the N.C. ![]() ![]() A coastal surface mooring, part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative Coastal Pioneer Array, shown at its first location in New England waters.
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