By MEREDITH HAAS/ecoRI.org News contributor
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| Doug Moore, Bold’s chief
mate and safety officer, navigates to sampling site and coordinates sample collection from the bridge. (EPA photos) |
ABOARD
BOLD — With humidity at 97 percent and a clinging fog that left visibility at
only a few yards, an encroaching storm was palpable regardless of weather
reports.
The Environmental Protection Agency’s 224-foot ocean survey vessel
(OSV) rolled along easily even as the ocean’s surface gradually roiled with
white caps and as lightening began to mark the horizon, seemingly where Rhode
Island Sound stopped and the Atlantic Ocean began.
“She’ll be here in 45 minutes,” said Doug Moore, Bold’s
chief mate and safety officer, as he scanned the radar and slowed the ship’s
speed so the crew could battle breaking waves to safely pull and secure the
mounted sonar system before thousands of dollars of equipment became another
artifact on the ocean floor.
Sure enough, within the hour, all 2,300 tons of ship was
driving through 7-foot swells that would have left a crew on a smaller vessel
with green faces. It was the first time in six days that the “fish” — as the
sonar system was often referred — was pulled and data collection had to be stopped,
until the storm passed.
A Dramamine, for several of us, and 12 quiet but
turbulent hours later, the crew was back in business to salvage the last day at
sea.
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| The ocean survey vessel (OSV) Bold is the
Environmental Protection Agency’s only ocean and coastal monitoring vessel |
Research cruise
Most of the days recently spent at sea weren’t this eventful. The seven-day research venture was led by University of Rhode Island marine research assistant and former graduate student Monique LaFrance, as part of an ongoing research project with URI researcher John King, Ph.D., to study geophysical and habitat characteristics of the ocean floor in both Block Island and Rhode Island sounds.
LaFrance and King have conducted six of these studies
throughout the area in a statewide effort propelled by interest in offshore
renewable energy development. In the rush to build infrastructure, it became
clear that little was known about the environment and how heavily the region is
used for activities such as fishing, sailing and marine transportation.
“We didn’t even know where the shipping lanes were. … We
knew virtually nothing,” Grover Fugate, executive director of the Coastal
Resources Management Council (CRMC), said regarding research efforts the state
began in 2008 to develop the Ocean Special Management Area Plan (SAMP).
The Ocean
SAMP is a management document for
both state and federal waters that encompasses various aspects of Rhode
Island’s offshore region, from climate and ecology to culture and economics.
“The information we’re collecting will be added into the
Ocean SAMP and aid in future siting of offshore wind turbines, as well as help
determine best practices for finding and studying submerged paleolandscapes,”
said LaFrance, noting that while some geological aspects were known the area
had never been mapped before.
LaFrance, who at one point was interested in a future
studying sea turtles, turned to seafloor mapping when she was a URI coastal
fellow in King’s lab, continuing on to URI’s Graduate School of Oceanography
and defending her master’s degree last summer.
“I didn’t even know what mapping was, but it sounded
interesting and I wanted to stay for the summer,” she said. “And I’ve never
left.”
Cruise director
On Aug. 1, she led a team of 20 into Rhode Island Sound to conduct additional surveys in areas surrounding Cox’s Ledge that have been marked as potential leasing blocks for wind turbines. Four sites, with a potential fifth, covering nearly 100 square miles were charted for the cruise.
On the day of departure, aboard a former military spy
vessel used during the Cold War now turned floating laboratory, it was with
high hopes for good weather and good ground.
“Many of these ships went on as research vessels after
the war for government agencies and academic institutions,” said Capt. Jerry
Chamberlain, who worked on the Bold when it was in military use.
He said that more than a dozen tactical auxiliary general
ocean survey (T-AGOS) ships were built for ocean surveillance by the military
for the sole purpose of collecting underwater acoustic data. In other words,
they were meant to listen in on enemy submarines.
“They’re extremely stable and are meant to go slow and
quiet,” Chamberlain said.
That stability couldn’t be argued as the vessel cut
through those 7-foot swells during the storm that hit on the sixth day. The
only time the sway of the boat was actually felt was in the shower, on the
treadmill, or at the stern or bow of the ship.
Bold is an impressive vessel only for its stability and
durability, but it’s also equipped with 20 scientific berths, a “mess” where
fresh cookies and hot meals are always in abundance, a small fitness room for
anyone who enjoyed the punishment of running — rather stumbling — on a
less-than-stationary treadmill, satellite TV for updates on the news or the
Olympics, and a nice sunning deck referred to as the “steel deck.”
Boring is good
Once new crew members settled into their berths and received the initial safety training, everyone was separated into three teams on four-hour rotating shifts every eight hours to keep a 24/7 operation going. At an average speed of 4.5 knots, the vessel covered more than 75 square miles and used a fixed interferometric sonar — “the fish” — to produce high-resolution digital images of the underwater terrain and surface geology detailing seafloor habitats and sediment thickness and type that can be used to indicate whether an area can support placement of wind turbines that are anchored by pilings extending 164 to 196 feet into the seabed.
When in operation, the fish emits a sound pulse into the
water column, sending out a rapid chirp both above and below the water. This
constant chirping and the drone of the engine are inescapable anywhere on the
vessel, and can either be your worst nightmare or just additional background
noise.
The science crew set up shop in a lab littered with
computer monitors continuously processing information being compiled from the
fixed side-scan sonar of the seafloor, logging time, latitude, speed and water
depth every 15 minutes. The boat crew kept the slow-going vessel on course —
traversing sections like mowing a lawn with nothing but an endless horizon in
view.
Sometimes the mounted sonar system’s lines and rigging
needed to be checked. Sometimes there was a blazing sunset with the promise of
a green flash or a full moon blocking all the stars that needed appreciation.
Sometimes, if there was nothing on satellite radio, there were birds hovering
near the ship that needed to be identified in hopes that it was a brown booby,
or games like Pictionary that needed to be played to stave off the boredom.
But when the view was nothing special, when there was
nothing new on the radio or the birds had flown away and the games all played,
it could be just downright hair-pulling boring. But boring is good out here,
when you are 20-plus miles from shore. Boring is what you hope for when you
leave the dock. It means nothing is amiss and you’re getting the best data,
which is crucial when your time and funding is limited.
Expensive
data
Researchers such as LaFrance are fortunate to contract time in the Bold’s busy schedule, and running this kind of operation can cost anywhere from $18,000 to $20,000 a day, she said. Costs can vary depending on the ship and length of cruise, but ocean research is no cheap endeavor.
“It’s expensive,” LaFrance said, explaining that there
are factors beyond your control, such as weather, that can interfere with the
ability to collect crucial data within a very limited window. “We’ve been lucky
to go out as many times as we have through the support of the Ocean SAMP and
agencies like the EPA.”
Findings from previous cruises published in the Ocean
SAMP describe the area surrounding Cox’s Ledge as largely glacial moraine, rock
and soil deposits left from the glacier that once extended out to Block Island.
Variable sediment change, from sand to mud and mud to sand, was observed in
addition to potential boulder fields and a gradual undulating surface. There
also are valuable habitat sites that have been removed from potential leasing,
such as Cox’s Ledge. It will take several weeks to process all of the
information from this recent cruise.
“It typically takes twice as long as the actual cruise to
process all of the data,” said LaFrance, explaining that adjustments have to be
made to the raw data to compensate for the angle in which sound reached the
seafloor, as well as the pitch and sway of the ship among other factors.
Once
the data has been processed and verified, using video and sediment samples, it
will be added to the Ocean SAMP’s official document.