Author Archives: Suzanne Shean

Using Luminescent Radiation to Describe “Forgotten” PAHs

Bassam Alfarhani aligns the laser beam of the multidimensional luminescence system. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons with high molecular weights (HMW-PAHs) are potentially toxic compounds that can cause genetic mutations. However, current environmental monitoring and analyses of human health risks only focus on the sixteen PAHs that the Environmental Protection Agency considers priority pollutants.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative awarded Dr. Andres D. Campiglia a grant to expand environmental monitoring efforts to include higher weight PAHs. These PAHs are difficult to quantify because they appear in lower concentrations than priority PAHs and the analytical standards for them is incomplete. Campiglia and his team aim to develop an analytical approach that will reliably detect, identify, and produce standards for HMW-PAHs in environmental Gulf of Mexico samples.

Andres Campiglia (front) and his colleague Bassam Alfarhani (back) monitor the laser output of the multidimensional luminescence system. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

The team will study HMW-PAH isomers – molecules with the same chemical formula but different chemical structures. The chemical analysis technique that they will use is based on Shpol’skii spectroscopy and will encourage isomers to emit luminescent radiation as either fluorescence or phosphorescence using a pulsed laser. The researchers will compare each isomer’s emission pattern and lifetime decay (the time it takes the emissions to fade) with existing standards to determine their molecular structures and distinguish them from other compounds.

Sample vessel of fiber optic probe used for taking photoluminescence measurements at liquid nitrogen (77K) and liquid helium (4.2K) temperatures. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

The team’s observations will be the de facto standards they use to study high-weight PAHs’ behavior and extend the database of PAHs that may appear in oil spill samples. Once their method has been verified, they will expand their methodology to include PAHs with even higher molecular weights, alkylated PAHs (which represent a large fraction of PAHs found in crude oil and oil-contaminated seafood), and PAHs containing sulfur (the principal atom that replaces carbon in coal, crude oil, tar, and their by-products).

“It is of paramount importance to determine the most toxic PAH isomers, even if less-toxic isomers are more abundant,” Campiglia stated. “Through collaborations with other scientists involved in the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, we should have the ability to track down specific isomers and better understand their environmental fate in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Andres Campiglia discusses his research with fellow scientists. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

This project’s researchers are Andres D. Campiglia, James K. Harper, and Fernando J. Uribe-Romo of the University of Central Florida’s Department of Chemistry. Their project is A Combined Analytical and Synthetic Approach Based on Line Narrowing Spectroscopy for Specific Isomer Determination of Petroleum Oil Spills.

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Bassam Alfarhani conducts 4.2K measurements using the fiber optic probe. (Provided by Andres Campiglia)

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visithttp://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Meet the Scientists of the Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC-I and CWC-II)

Click image for website…

The first three years of Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC-I) began September 2011 and ended December 2015. The second three years of Costal Waters Consortium (CWC-II) began January 1, 2015 and extends until the end of December 2017.

Meet some of the many researchers up-close and personal in the following links:

CWC-I Scientist Spotlights

CWC-II Scients Spotlights

CWC Education and Outreach Site

Visit their social media pages….

Grad Student Jaggi Seeks Solution to World’s Clean Water Shortage

Aprami Jaggi conducts bench top oil-water partitioning experiments. (photo credit: Kim Nightingale)

As a child in India, Aprami Jaggi witnessed firsthand how polluted water sources impact society.

Her desire to make water remediation her life’s work has led her from Delhi to Calgary, Canada, to study oil mitigation. There she combines geochemistry and geophysics to hunt for scientific answers and practical solutions to the worldwide water pollution problem.

Pursuing a Ph.D. in geosciences at the University of Calgary, Aprami is a GoMRI Scholar with the C-IMAGE consortium. She talks about her journey around the world to gain the knowledge required to help her homeland.

Her Path

“I believe that my very first trip to the National Science Museum resulted in my initiation into science,” Aprami said of her first childhood visit to India’s flagship science museum. “This was followed with ‘100 science experiments for kids’ and lots of exhibitions.” She recalled spending weeks filling buckets from a tanker to cope with a clean water shortage. Getting water this way gave Aprami direction to her growing passion for science. “The abysmal condition of the rivers in the city and the continuing pollution inspired me to work towards water remediation.”

Aprami stands with the customised partition device used to experimentally simulate oil spill conditions. (photo credit: Kim Nightingale)

Aprami studied environmental engineering at the University of Delhi, where she worked on natural water bioremediation projects and sampled the Yamuna River to identify industrial input hotspots. An internship and subsequent job at Nalco-Champion, an Ecolab Company, introduced her to the industrial capabilities of water treatment. There she helped develop chemistries tailor-made to the respective problem, a direction she decided to pursue further academically.

“At my time in Nalco-Champion, I had heard about the game-changing ideas of Dr. Steve Larter and Dr. Thomas Oldenburg’s group,” she said, adding that their ideology of applied sciences supported her vision of change through research.

Aprami saw the ocean for the first time in July 2015 when she boarded the Justo Sierra on a cruise she organized. (photo credit: Sara Lincoln)

Larter’s TED^x talk about rethinking the world’s need for fossil fuels inspired her to contact the two researchers and see if their program would be a good fit with her academic studies and water remediation experience. They offered her a position on the C-IMAGE project to study Deepwater Horizon oil spill impacts on the Gulf of Mexico. She travelled halfway across the globe and began her Ph.D. in September 2014.

Her Work

Aprami is looking at how low molecular-weight, toxic oil compounds such as benzene and toluene enter and travel through the water column. Because traditional measurement methods cannot account for high pressure and low temperature extremes in deep sea conditions, her team built a specialized instrument to measure these compounds’ distribution trends under deepwater blowout conditions. They customized the device using methane-charged oil or ‘live’ oil to simulate dissolved gases’ release during a spill. Initial results, which she presented at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference, indicated methane’s inclusion greatly influences the amount of toxic oil elements that enter the marine environment. The data the device generated will help create future distribution models of toxic pollutants migration through water. She is preparing her first paper for an international peer-reviewed journal about how oil components partition into the water column under various temperature and pressure conditions.

The all-female science party, Aprami in center, aboard the R/V Weatherbird II in August 2015. (photo courtesy of C-IMAGE)

Aprami also is investigating the fate of oil compounds from the 1979 Ixtocand 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spills. She collected water samples last summer in areas these spills impacted and is analyzing the molecular structure of dissolved organic matter to understand long term oil fate. “I was onboard the Justo Sierra and Weatherbird-II a week apart,” she recalled. “I covered over 20 different sampling sites and collected samples at different depths using Niskin bottles, while measuring the temperature, conductivity and oxygen profile of the water column.”

Aprami, who had never before seen the ocean, organized the sampling trip to Mexico. Her first expedition lasted 17 days, sampling 12-16 hours per day and helping other research groups on board. She arrived in St. Petersburg, Florida, and began a 5-day sampling effort in the northern Gulf. Afterwards, she organized shipping of the equipment to Sachs Harbour, Northwest Territories, Canada, where another research group took Arctic water samples for comparison studies.

Aprami transferred and extruded core sediments on board the Weatherbird II in August 2015. (photo courtesy of C-IMAGE)

She shipped the Gulf samples to Calgary and analyzed them using Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance- mass spectrometry (FTICR-MS). FTICR-MS can resolve complex molecular mixtures and provide the elemental composition of individual compounds, making it ideal for molecular fingerprinting the extremely complex makeup of the oceans’ dissolved organic matter (DOM). The comprehensive DOM screening helps researchers analyze compounds that are poorly understood in terms of environmental and human health impacts and enables tracing of contamination sources. For example, DOM in natural waters near oil seeps and spill sites may represent near terminal degradation petroleum products.

Her Learning

Aprami learned the importance of the research process, which gives scientists tools to persevere, particularly when developing new experimental protocols: “The execution of every big idea starts small. For example, before you take on the big fancy equipment, you have to perfect the art of washing glass ware. Each step along the way is important to reach the end goal.”

She feels fortunate to be part of the GoMRI community, saying the close knit research group working towards a common goal provides a unique opportunity for interdisciplinary and interinstitutional collaboration. “Being a part of C-IMAGE, I get to work alongside people from 19 institutions and 5 different countries,” Aprami explained. “Without GoMRI, such collaboration wouldn’t have been possible.”

Her Future

The science party on board the Justo Sierra, July-August 2015. (photo courtesy of C-IMAGE)

Aprami plans to complete her Ph.D. in 2018 and pursue a corporate research and development position to help find practical answers to worldwide water pollution problems

“Having been a part of the R&D section in the industry, I realize that although the prospect of ‘blue sky research’ is exciting, we need more and more scientists working on providing real world solutions to existing problems,” she explained.

Praise for Aprami

Aprami’s advisors Steve Larter and Thomas Oldenburg described her as a key team member, both scientifically and socially. She immediately impressed the C-IMAGE administration, who named Aprami their Student of the Month shortly after she arrived in Calgary. She has won additional awards and accolades since, including being asked to give an oral presentation at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill & Ecosystem Science Conference.

Aprami’s lab equipment for extracting dissolved organic matter from water samples on board the Justo Sierra. (photo credit: Aprami Jaggi)

“Considering that Aprami’s previous studies and experience were not geology or geochemistry related, it is remarkable how deep her technical knowledge is already at this stage,” said Oldenburg. He and Larter acknowledged her exceptional speaking and writing skills, but said her deep scientific knowledge makes her a rising star, “She not only developed special extraction methods usable under limited lab conditions such as cruise ships but also learned in this short time how to operate the unique partition device, GC-MS, LC-MS, and FTICR-MS and how to interpret these diverse data sets.”

Aprami especially impressed her advisors when she organized the research mission into Ixtoc-impacted Gulf waters, overcoming the language barrier with the Mexican crew among other challenges. They reported that many other cruise members expressed how enthusiastically she helped the team in addition to tending to her own sampling. “Aprami has excellent interpersonal skills, works very hard, is very organized, joins and partially organizes many social events within our research group,” Larter summed up. “Aprami is an all A+ student!”

Aprami’s more elaborate lab set up at her lab in Calgary. (photo credit: Aprami Jaggi)

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Aprami Jaggi and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals. Visit the C-IMAGE website to learn more about their work.

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This research was made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Assessing Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Impacts on Families and Children

The researchers hope to better understand the Deepwater Horizon oil spill’s long-term impact on the health and wellbeing of families – especially children – living in highly impacted regions. (Photo provided by Jaishree Beedasy with permission)

Immediately following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the National Center for Disaster Preparedness surveyed households in highly-affected Louisiana areas to track the event’s health and social impacts.

Follow up studies in 2014 revealed that physical and mental distress resulting from the spill still persisted, with over 15% of respondents reporting no perceived recovery of their household or community.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Dr. Tim Slack a grant to continue impact assessments of the oil spill on families and their children. The study will combine surveys, focus groups, and social media analyses to create a longitudinal dataset with time points in 2014, 2016, and 2018. This data will help document social consequences, such as risk behaviors and educational and economic opportunities, and physical and mental effects of disaster-related trauma on families affected by the spill. The study will also examine how these impacts are related to various dimensions of disaster vulnerability (a person or community’s risk of negative disaster impacts) and resilience (the ability to adapt and recover).

The team will conduct face-to-face surveys with household members to gather quantitative information about children’s direct and indirect oil spill exposure; lasting physical, mental, and social health impacts; the household’s economic constraints and access to healthcare; and the community’s perceived recovery or deterioration.

The team will access and analyze social media data using a geospatial query tool tailored to certain locations and filtered using parameters such as keywords, user, date, and time. This information will be used to chart trends and timelines of social media communication related to resiliency topics. These data will help researchers determine if social media fits into existing patterns of resiliency or if it represents a unique form of post-spill resilience.

Principle Investigator Tim Slack (top left) and co-PIs Jaishree Beedasy (top right), Matthew Lee (bottom left), and Thomas Chandler (bottom right) will collect data from spill-affected households to identify which services and support will be most helpful to their recovery. (Photos provided by Tim Slack)

The researchers will assemble six focus groups each with ten individuals based on parameters such as socio-demographics, reliance on social media, and vulnerability. Facilitators will encourage participants to share their personal experiences related to the oil spill, their specific roles and responsibilities during the spill and the following years, and how they used social media to deal with it. They will also consider how online communication with policymakers, first responders, and public health organizations about vulnerable communities’ needs has changed over time. Researchers will use this information to develop a deeper qualitative understanding of the participants’ oil spill experience.

“The quantitative survey technique and qualitative focus group technique are derived from different theoretical approaches,” said co-Principal Investigator Jaishree Beedasy. “However, the particular strengths and limitations of these methods complement one another in a unified research design.”

The team will combine the survey data, social media analysis, and focus group information to identify services and support that may be most beneficial to affected Gulf households and communities. Data will be available to other scientists, policy makers, and the public, and the researchers are planning to engage communities and community leaders in conversations about the findings. Slack explained, “Our ultimate goal is that the information generated from this project will be made actionable in terms of helping facilitate disaster resilience and mitigate vulnerability.”

The project’s researchers are Tim Slack and Matthew R. Lee at the Louisiana State University Department of Sociology and Jaishree Beedasy and Thomas Chandler at the Columbia University National Center for Disaster Preparedness. Their project is Understanding Resilience Attributes for Children, Youth, and Communities in the Wake of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (RCYC).

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Grad Student Robinson Follows Little Blue Crabs for Bigger Food Web Picture

Elizabeth Robinson enjoys field work in Terrebonne Bay studying blue crab in their natural habitat. (Photo provided by E. Robinson)

Elizabeth Robinson studies blue crab’s role in the northern Gulf of Mexico food web, looking closely at how Deepwater Horizon oil might have affected the natural predator-prey balance.

Many people who hear the phrase ‘marine life’ typically think first about big ocean animals like whales and dolphins. Elizabeth explained why smaller marine animals – like crabs – mean just as much to ocean health, “The little guys are what feed the bigger guys. If you lose the little guys, those bigger guys are going to disappear.”

Elizabeth is a GoMRI Scholar with the Coastal Waters Consortium, pursuing a Ph.D. in Oceanography and Coastal sciences at Louisiana State University with research centered at Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON).

Her Path

Elizabeth created a mesocosm experiment station to get a better understanding of how crabs behave in their natural environment. (Photo provided by E. Robinson)

Elizabeth credits childhood visits to museums, aquariums, and nature centers and having home aquariums with sparking her interest in marine science. Her parents involved Elizabeth and her hearing-impaired brother in hands-on science learning opportunities whenever possible, encouraging them to learn using all their senses. These early experiences helped Elizabeth feel comfortable around water.

Elizabeth considers Louisiana and its water-rich environment as home even though her family moved many times. Living in Louisiana added a different dimension to her growing interest, as she explained, “The politics around wetlands loss and fisheries have also influenced why I’m in science.” She stayed in the region, earning a bachelor’s degree from Centenary College of Louisiana and a Master’s degree in Biology from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. Her thesis was on invasive cold water crab species.

One of Elizabeth’s undergraduate courses was a video conference class from LUMCON, where she worked as a summer intern in Dr. Nancy Rabalais’ lab. Several years later, Elizabeth jumped at the chance to work with Rabalais again, this time as a Ph.D. student. Rabalais leads a multi-year grant studying effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Louisiana marshes. Elizabeth felt this would be the perfect opportunity to learn how the spill might have impacted crabs.

Her work

Each mesocosm recreates as accurately as possible conditions in the wild, serving as important tools in ecosystem studies. (Photo provided by E. Robinson)

Elizabeth explained why she chose these marine animals for her dissertation experiments, “Blue crabs are a keystone species. They link benthic and pelagic environments together, are important as a food source, and serve as a control on so many other different species.”

Elizabeth is concurrently running field and lab studies to determine local crab distribution and their response to oil. She scrutinizes snail, oyster, and mussel populations at designated transects in Terrebonne Bay to understand how residual oil might be affecting their population distributions and morphology. Blue crabs eat these species, and Elizabeth explains why this work is the foundation for understanding potential food web changes: “If I’m seeing a high population of snails, is it because crab predators are avoiding certain marshes because of oil? Or can they not find the snails because their behavior has been altered by oil?”

Seeking answers to these and other questions, Elizabeth releases minnow traps to lure juvenile blue crabs and uses scoop nets to catch them. She sizes her catches and then runs various lab experiments to determine oil exposure’s impact on their survival and behavior. One experiment involves exposing crabs to oiled water and then tethering them back in the bay to see if that increases their vulnerability to predation. Healthy crabs bury themselves to escape predators, but Elizabeth is finding that oil-exposed crabs are not responding to threats in a typical manner.

Elizabeth conducts lab experiments to determine how oil affects predator-prey behavior of crabs and snails. She uses oil-exposed crabs in flume experiments to see if oil impacts their ability to find food using chemical cues. Preliminary results show that oil reduces the crab’s chemosensory ability. She also conducts mesocosm experiments – a mini-ecosystem in a controlled chamber – to study crab-snail interactions in oiled sediment. Her initial findings suggest that in this situation, oil makes blue crabs unusually aggressive and they successfully forage for snails. However, crabs in the mesocosm experiments are dependent on visual cues and not utilizing chemical cues as they did in the flume experiment. The oil also reduced snail climbing behavior making them more susceptible to crab predation.

Her learning

Elizabeth Robinson tests the shell strength of periwinkle snails. She is trying to determine if snail strength differs between locations along the coast. (Photo provided by CWC)

Elizabeth said the diverse projects that GoMRI funds provide a bigger-picture context and raise the bar for everyone involved in oil spill research. “Conferences are a lot to take in,” she explained, referring to the annual meetings where scientists studying the oil spill and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem gather. “It helps you as a biologist to learn from physicists, chemists, and others what you need to focus on in your experiments.”

She credits the hands-off management style of her advisor Nancy Rabalais with instilling confidence in her own abilities: “She’s taught me a lot about independence, that I can trouble-shoot problems by myself and not rely on anyone to hold my hand.”

Her Future

Elizabeth knows her work will always focus on crabs, even though her career path after graduation isn’t certain. Her aspirations vary from opening up her own marine research facility to serving in regulatory roles in government and/or industry.

Science can be stressful, so Elizabeth cautions those considering pursuing it to have a passion for it. Having that love, she says, creates the tenacity to get scientists through the long hours of frustrating or tedious work often necessary to reach important findings.

Praise for Elizabeth

Elizabeth wants to spend her career focused on ‘little guys’ like blue crabs that play such an important role in overall marine health. (Photo provided by E. Robinson)

Nancy Rabalais describes Elizabeth as a dedicated and creative researcher: “She has an exceptional command of experimental biology. She is persistent, modifying as necessary, and thinking through alternative explanations for results in her complex experiments.”

Elizabeth, she says, is an active graduate student who takes advantage of every opportunity. She collaborates with her lab mates, participates in Coastal Ecology informal talks, and attends and presents at professional meetings annually, including the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference, representing CWC and LUMCON well. Finally, she is active in LSU’s Coast and Environment Graduate Organization, serving as president for the 2013-2014 academic year.

“She has all the qualifications for completion of her Ph.D. —good course performance, writing skills, presentation skills, critical thinking, and a collaborative attitude,” summed up Rabalais.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Elizabeth Robinson and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

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Lesson Plan: “Taking Science Deeper” Deep-Sea Activities (K-6)

Images and content credit: DEEPEND Consortium

The Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics (DEEPEND) Consortium has created lesson plans for “Taking Science Deeper” Activities.

Book 1: Introduction to the Deep Sea
Book 2: Deep-Sea Animals
Book 3: Hagfish Day!
Book 4: Ocean Currents and Pollution Awareness

For additional educational materials from DEEPEND, click here.

Ten Outstanding Education Products Six Years After Deepwater Horizon

Students construct their own drifter after being inspired by “Bob the Drifter”. (Provided by: Jenny Harter)

Communicating oil spill research is essential to improve society’s understanding about spills and their ability to respond to and mitigate them.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) has been funding spill-related research since 2010.

Here are ten outstanding education products and resources that GoMRI and its science community have developed to share what they are learning, doing, and how they are preparing the next generation of scientists for future spill research.

Products You Can Watch…

“Film provides an opportunity to marry the power of ideas with the power of images.”
— Steven Bochco, television writer and producer

Award-winning short films for young audiences “Drones at the Beach” and “Bob the Drifter” use easy-to-understand language and imagery to explain two technologies that scientists use to track an oil slick as it moves with ocean currents towards beaches.

Syndicated outdoors program Gary Finch Outdoors, in partnership with Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium (MASGC), produced over a dozen short videos highlighting deep-sea research. The videos comprise the Research Video Series and contributed to the E/V Nautilus 2014 Cruise Videos and the Tools of the Trade series.

The Screenscope film production company developed the documentary Dispatches from the Gulf, narrated by Matt Damon, as an episode of the award-winning series Journey to Planet Earth. The film is available for screenings. Screenscope is offering two live streaming events of the film on April 20, 2016, at 2 pm and 7 pm EST to mark the Deepwater Horizon’s sixth anniversary.

The short film “Deciphering Oil Spill Impacts in Louisiana Wetlands” describes GoMRI-funded research on the chemical evolution, biological degradation, and environmental stresses of oil on Louisiana wetlands.

Products You Can Hear…

“Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.”
— Robert McKee, writer

The Loop: Stories from the Gulf is a podcast series produced by David Levin and Ari Daniel Shapiro that takes listeners under the sea, into the mud, and back to the lab to explore ongoing research. There are currently eight episodes of The Loop available for streaming including:

The Pressure Is On: In “Under Pressure”, German scientists modeled the Deepwater Horizon blowout in a tank that can simulate the water pressure level of the blowout depth to track the oil’s movement and better understand oil dynamics at extreme depths.

“Under Pressure” (07:43):

Seeking New Insights from Decades-Old Spill: In “The Gulf’s Big Blowouts” and “Return to Ixtoc”, an international team of researchers hoping to predict how Deepwater Horizon may impact the Gulf decades into the future set out to study a spill of the past – the 1979 Ixtoc I blowout.

“The Gulf’s Big Blowouts” (08:08):

“Return to Ixtoc” (9:03):

Products for the Classroom…

“The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.”
— Aristotle

The multidisciplinary high school curriculum developed by Deep-C draws connections between the theoretical nature of science and real-world applications and addresses issues such as environmental disasters, their impacts on ocean ecosystems, and nature’s recovery mechanisms. Each of the curriculum’s five modules focuses on a main research area (geomorphology, geochemistry, ecology, physical oceanography, and modeling) and includes five cumulative lessons, background information on the topic, relevant supplementary reading materials, a glossary, and an assessment.

Free downloadable lesson plans and teaching materials bring deep sea and oil spill research to the classroom. DEEPEND has created lesson plans for grades K-5, 6-8, and 9-12 that cover deep sea topics ranging from bioluminescence to topography and include curricula, experiment instructions, and coloring sheets. Several of CWC’s K-12 Science Classroom Activities, which include lesson plans and fun, science-based activities covering a wide range of oil spill science topics, have been translated into Spanish to reach a broader, more-diverse audience.

Products You Can Explore…

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
— Marcel Proust, novelist

The Smithsonian Ocean Portal is an online complement to the Sant Ocean Hall in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Pieces they have developed include research stories, interactive infographics, blog posts, interviews with GoMRI scientists, and more.

Student Stories highlights some outstanding graduate students to inspire future generations of scientists. Each story describes individual students’ journeys into oil spill research, their current research, and hopes for the future.

The Sea Grant oil spill outreach team creates short brochures that answer coastal audiences’ top questions about the oil spill including fisheries, oiled beaches, and dispersants. These brochures synthesize peer-reviewed oil spill science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those whose livelihoods depend on a healthy Gulf.

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This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to theConsortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE), Ecosystem Impacts of Oil and Gas Inputs to the Gulf (ECOGIG) Consortium, the Center for Integrated Modeling and Analysis of Gulf Ecosystems (C-IMAGE I and C-IMAGE II), the Deepsea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico (Deep-C)Consortium, the Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico (DEEPEND) Consortium, and the Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC).

Dispatches from the Gulf is made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI).

GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

GoMRI and the Smithsonian have a partnership to enhance oil spill science content on the Ocean Portal website.

The GoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visithttp://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Fact Sheet: Fiddler Crabs of the Gulf of Mexico

Want to know more about the fiddler crab? Click here to download the Coastal Waters Consortium (CWC) Fact Sheet on the Fiddler Crab’s habitat, food sources, behavior, cultural common name, and many more interesting facts.

Over the years, students who have participated in Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMCON) Estuarine Awaremess and Discovery (LEAD) Camp and Field Marine Science Camp have been conducting ongoing research of fiddler crab burrows.

Visit CWC’s website for more fact sheets and printable resources.

Lesson Plan: DEEPEND Visits New River Middle School

Photo Credit: DEEPEND

Story posted by Nina Pruzinsky on DEEPEND’s BLOG

On Friday, March 4, 2016, Mike Novotny and Nina Pruzinsky visited Mr. Kyle Lendick’s 6th grade Marine Science classes at New River Middle School. The three classes spent several weeks completing Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics (DEEPEND)’s grade 6-8 lesson plans (found in the Education/Outreach section under Education, Resources, Lesson Plans) before our visit, so the students had already obtained a knowledgeable background regarding the deep sea and our research. Upon our arrival, we could tell that every student was very excited to learn more about our experiences as DEEPEND members.

To start, Mike and I briefly explained how the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill influenced the need for research and baseline data in the Gulf of Mexico and how we were sampling the Gulf’s ecosystem. The students found the discrete depth sampling of the MOCNESS net to be very interesting, and throughout our discussions, I stressed the term diel vertical migration. This was a new term for most students, and they were shocked to hear that it is the world’s largest migration! After our short presentation and tons of questions, we split into two groups to talk about at the deep sea fishes we brought in to share with them. With each specimen, we stressed the importance of the adaptations it uses to survive in the deep sea. The students loved the hands-on experience, and their questions were endless! Overall, I had an amazing time teaching the students about the work that we do for the DEEPEND Consortium. It was great to see how students as early as 6th grade were curious about life in the deep sea.

Click here for more lessons plans from DEEPEND…

Video: CONORDE Animation Describes Drifter Paths

The short clip tracks the paths of drifters released during a research event in the Mobile Bay area as part of the Consortium for oil spill exposure pathways in Coastal River-Dominated Ecosystems (CONCORDE)’s Spring Research Campaign. See below for video to learn more about the drifter deployment.

This animation was created by Jeff Coogan who works with CONCORDE investigator Dr. Brian Dzwonkowski at Dauphin Island Sea Lab.

Lesson Plan: SeaGlide Educator Workshop, 2016

Twenty teachers turn water bottles into mini SeaGliders

Photo and Story Credit: LADC-GEMM

The research and science behind projects like Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center – Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) can often seem high-brow, inaccessible, and even confusing. So, one of the ways the LADC-GEMM project aims to demystify ocean science is by using the popularity of robotic ocean gliders – like our charismatic “Otis” and “Clyde” – to engage teachers and students in exploring many of the essential skills and principles of the kind of work that is becoming more commonplace in the marine sector.

“What are underwater gliders and how are they used by scientists to study the ocean and its inhabitants?” is a simple question that opens up many avenues for exploration. But the most fun and accessible is actually building a working model of a seaglider. Recently, 20 elementary through high school, in and out-of-school, educators from around the state of Oregon came to the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, Oregon to spend a Saturday doing just that. During the SeaGlide Educator Workshop, they also heard directly from LADC-GEMM scientists how gliders are being used in their research and were treated to a presentation by Toledo, Oregon, high school students who had already spent a school term building their own simple versions and analyzing real data collected by gliders used in recent field work. This gave the workshop participants the opportunity to see how curricula can be developed around this engaging STEM activity, either in a classroom or for after-school programs.

Photo Credit: LADC-GEMM

The seagliders built during the workshop used designs and instructions developed by Michael Britt-Crane at Seaglide.net. SeaGlide was originally designed for high school students. It moves by changing its buoyancy, taking in or expelling water. This change in buoyancy causes the glider to rise and sink in the water. As the glider travels up and down, its wings generate lift, which propels the glider forward. SeaGlide can’t run for months at a time like real gliders, but it can collect temperature and pressure data as it ‘flies’ through the water.

Photo Credit: LADC-GEMM

For the workshop participants, the hands-on experience of building their own Seaglider with the help of mentors (several were local members of the high school robotics club) proved to be the most valuable part of the day. The majority walked away from the workshop feeling confident in facilitating this STEM learning experience, and being able to teach students about the science, technology, engineering and math aspects. Some plan to incorporate gliders in curriculum as part of a course in the school system, some in an after school club or activity, and a few as a summer program.

Here at LADC-GEMM, we can’t wait to hear how these educators apply their new skills and implement their SeaGlide programs.

SeaGlide workshops are being organized by LADC-GEMM consortium members for 2016 and 2017, in Mississippi and other “Gulf States”. Look for the announcements on this website!

Click here for more details about this workshop

Click here for resources useful for outreach program development

Click here for more information about the Oregon Coast STEM Hub

Using Acoustics to Monitor Oil and Gas from Deep Natural Seafloor Seeps

The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Jason II being deployed from R/V Atlantis. The researchers use the ROV to position the acoustic scintillation moorings in specific locations to capture vertical upwelling flows. (Photo by Daniela Di Iorio)

There is a lot of action at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. A turbulent mixed layer of water and sediment particles known as the bottom boundary layer circulates counterclockwise across the seafloor, flowing against the water above.

Meanwhile, oil and gas naturally seep into this active environment from the seafloor. Scientists are investigating how the dynamics of this bottom layer affect the vertical movement of seeping hydrocarbons and the resuspension of previously deposited hydrocarbons to better predict where oil spilled in the deep Gulf will go.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Dr. Daniela Di Iorio a grant to measure the long-term vertical upwelling processes of hydrocarbon plumes and determine the impacts of bottom boundary layer dynamics on hydrocarbon distribution and resuspension.

A lack of long-term measurements of these natural processes has limited our understanding of their impact on oil released from natural seeps and oil rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon.

The bosun of the R/V Atlantis (bottom right) indicates that the acoustic scintillation receiver mooring is clear to be lowered into the water. Di Iorio’s team will use this instrumentation to monitor the hydrocarbon plume. (Photo by Daniela Di Iorio)

Di Iorio’s team will observe an oil and gas plume from a natural seafloor seep for three months using acoustic scintillation, focusing on the point where seep materials reach the top of the bottom boundary layer. The acoustic scintillation method observes how sound waves fluctuate as they pass through the plume to determine the amount of vertical upwelling and turbulence. Di Iorio noted, “This work is an extension of our previous work with hydrothermal plumes. To date, there is nobody that monitors long-term vertical velocities of deep sea hydrocarbon plumes, and the three-month time period is critical for assessing seeps’ temporal variability.”

While some hydrocarbon escapes the boundary layer and rises to the surface, residual materials remaining in the bottom layer may encounter energetic processes near the seafloor. The team will use an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler and hydrographic sensors to measure bottom boundary layer processes that may affect hydrocarbon dispersal.

The data will allow researchers to measure turbulent fluxes and mixing levels in the bottom boundary layer and identify strong flows near the seabed that could cause sedimented oil resuspension and mixing between the boundary layer and the overlying water column.

The researchers use a bottom-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler to monitor turbulent bottom boundary layer flows. (Photo by Daniela Di Iorio)

Di Iorio stated, “The measurements we hope to collect will provide a useful complement to on-going studies funded through GoMRI consortia, particularly research by the ECOGIG team on natural seep research and the CARTHE and DROPPS teams on oil transport.”

The project’s researchers are Daniela Di Iorio of the University of Georgia and Andreas M. Thurnherr of Columbia University. Their project is Vertical Upwelling and Bottom-Boundary Layer Dispersal at a Natural Seep Site.

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This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to the University of Georgia Department of Marine Sciences and Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory for their project Vertical upwelling and bottom-boundary layer dispersal at a natural seep site.

LASER Focus Advances Knowledge of How Gulf of Mexico Water Moves

(Click to enlarge) CARTHE drifter trajectories in the Gulf of Mexico superimposed on AVISO surface currents. Red squares mark drifters positions on 9 March 2016 and the tails are 14 days long. (Credit: Edward Ryan and Tamay Ozgokmen from the University of Miami)

The Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE) conducts unprecedented experiment to improve oil fate models.

Predictions for decisions – our world relies on them, from daily weather to annual financial forecasts. Predictions, though, are only as good as the information that goes into making them. And those predictions carry even more weight when they involve human safety in situations like storm tracking, search and rescue, and pollution monitoring.

The Gulf Coast experienced such a situation during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Answers to where was the oil going, how much was involved, and when would it arrive would influence many decisions. Responders used the best available resources for decision-making, but the blowout’s magnitude and depth was a first for the Gulf and the need for improved transport modeling became apparent.

A 3-D printer created small-scale drifter prototypes (photo: Novelli). Top right: Cedric Guigand and Guillaume Novelli hold the 1st production-grade assembled drifter after they and Charles Cousin conducted two years of R&D (photo: Ozgokmen). Bottom right: Full and half-scale drifters side by side. The surface ring provides buoyancy; its open design and narrow neck prevent wind from lifting or tilting the drifter. (Photo: Novelli)

The CARTHE group, 75 researchers and staff representing 26 institutions, recently carried out a month-long experiment in the Gulf of Mexico named the LAgrangian Submesoscale ExpeRiment or LASER. Their goal: make quantum leaps in improved ocean transport predictions. Years of planning, designing, and testing preceded this highly-orchestrated event that went beyond previous scales and scope.

Using two research vessels, three planes, and cutting-edge technology, the LASER team acquired troves of ocean data from hundreds of survey miles; 1,000 biodegradable drifters; 8,000 high-resolution photos; 10,000 biodegradable drift cards; and 500,000 infrared images. This monumental effort is already paying off big dividends with nearly ten million data transmissions to date, providing information that prediction models can use now.

“We produced a wonderful dataset. I don’t think anything quite like this has been done before.” Professor Eric D’Asaro, Applied Physics Laboratory and School of Oceanography, University of Washington and LASER’s Scientific Lead and Chief Scientist on MV Walton Smith

SOME BACKGROUND

The team conducted thousands of drifter tests and experiments in the SUSTAIN wind-wave tank. L: Cedric Guigand tests a drifter. Top Right: The tank’s wind-generating machine. The difficult and creative work resulted in significantly improved drifters with a patent application. (Photos: Ozgokmen)

The theories driving CARTHE research are that the accurate prediction of an oil spill’s first mile of transport is critical for accurately predicting its last mile and that surface transport is strongly influenced by what’s happening just below the sea surface and where air and water meet.

CARTHE’s first experiment, the Grand LAgrangian Deployment or GLAD, was the largest oceanic surface drifter deployment to date and demonstrated the importance of observing surface currents for accurate transport predictions. The 317 GLAD drifters rapidly spread in the first few hours and days, then continued more slowly afterwards. GLAD data improved operational circulation models, but they needed more detailed observations on the physical processes driving surface dispersion. So LASER picked up where GLAD left off, collecting high-resolution data that measures complex upper-ocean processes driving the initial quick burst and longer-term dispersion. LASER data will complement the GLAD data and provide better understanding about seasonal variability and its influence on water transport.

NOVEL TACTICS AND TECHNOLOGY FOR OCEANOGRAPHIC STUDIES

The aerostat team conducts field tests to check the winch, lines, and the camera platform. Dan Carlson led the development of the aerostat and its imaging platform that carried a 50 mega-pixel Canon DSLR camera. (Photos: Ozgokmen)

The LASER team went back to the drawing board to advance ocean transport predictions. They spent more than two years researching and developing a new generation drifter that addressed limitations of the GLAD drifter design. The new drifter had to be biodegradable, light weight, compact, cost efficient, easily produced and assembled, and could float and track currents in high winds and waves.

An operational version emerged after experiments in the SUSTAIN wind-wave tank facility and in nearby Biscayne Bay. These ‘roving detectives’ equipped with satellite trackers can transmit data for several months without leaving behind thousands of plastic skeletons (drifters are 99.9% biodegradable due to their tiny GPS board). Researchers also designed autonomous 3-D Lagrangian floats that measure vertical velocities a few meters below the sea surface. These floats and drifters provide data to advance knowledge about surface and water column transport.

Top Left: Forrest Glenn Middle School students paint drift cards. Bottom Left: West Miami Middle School students display their painted drift cards. R: Test drift cards in Biscayne Bay. (Photos by CARTHE)

Complementing the drifters were bamboo drift cards, which local middle-school students helped color for visual identification using non-toxic paint. Researchers used these drift cards to measure dispersion by waves, winds and ocean currents at scales of 1 meter-100 meters and seconds-hours. The cards thin design (~1 millimeter) allowed researchers to capture the top-most surface velocity needed for oil dispersion studies. Since the cards could not be fitted with tracking devices, the team developed a Ship-Tethered Aerostat Remote Sensing System (STARSS) – a helium-filled balloon carrying a high resolution camera and positioning system – to provide spatial context and real-time observations of drift card dispersion and surface features.

L: Crews load the towed CTD on the Walton Smith. Top Right: Eric D’Asaro (L) helps situate one of the solar-and-wave-powered gliders which travels 14 days at 1 m/s. Bottom Right: Brian Haus and team set up the X-Band Radar tower that takes 1 m resolution wave measurements in a 3 km radius. (Photos: D’Asaro and Ozgokmen)

LASER incorporated aircraft surveys, ship measurements, and real-time assimilative models to guide drifter deployments under cloudy conditions and identify quickly-evolving features. Two dual-engine Partanavia p86 planes from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography operated high-resolution thermal and hyperspectral imagers that geo-rectify images. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) provided a high-resolution AirSWOT, an airborne version of a new altimeter sensor to be installed on satellites in 2020. The JPL-CARTHE collaboration provided ground truthing for NASA sensor measurements and additional detailed mapping capability for LASER.

Shipboard surveys provided fine-scale real-time data on air-sea flux, density, temperature, salinity, velocity, wind, and waves. Instruments included an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler; a Rockland Scientific Profiler; a towed conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) system (freeing the crew from making numerous, single-point casts); an X-band wave radar tower; meteorological buoys; and robotic wave gliders. The University of Miami Coupled Atmosphere-Wave-Ocean Model and the Navy Coastal Ocean model assimilated incoming data. The modelling team made available the resulting high-resolution forecasts of weather, waves, and circulations in real time through a central website to aide LASER deployment decisions.

LASER BY LAND, SEA, AND AIR

L: Autonomous 3D Lagrangian floats, ready for vessel loading, measure vertical velocities in the turbulent mixed layer (photo: Ozgokmen). R: Surface drifters in a container ready to launch. (Photo: Novelli)

“I was excited about LASER, but sobered by the magnitude of what we needed to accomplish.” Eric D’Asaro on transitioning from planning to execution

It took almost three days to load ten tons of equipment on the R/V Walton Smith and U/V Masco VIII. Teams manned forklifts and loaded containers with drifters, cards, gliders, and the aerostat. They welded winches, bolted down the wave radar tower, and tested connections for data exchange and communications. Modelers ran forecasts while the Walton Smith sailed from Miami to join the Masco VIII in Key West. Crews battened down the hatches and waited out a storm, then set sail together on January 18 with threatening skies and rough seas as their constant companions for the next month.

L: The Masco VIII tows the aerostat as it images drift cards (credit Dan Carlson). Top right: The crew rescues the aerostat from being dislodged by wind (provided by CARTHE). Bottom right: Crews deploy drifters in rough seas across from the Walton Smith. (Photo: Novelli)

Intense storms set the crews’ timing and pace. Everyone braced for demanding work, assembling and staging drifters and communicating constantly as they organized day and night shifts to work during fair weather windows. The UCLA plane generated sea-surface-temperature (SST) maps for the first deployment site where the crews worked speedily as weather deteriorated, deploying 300+ drifters in five hours and surveying the area. Then they headed for safe harbor in Gulfport, MS.

A variety of adjustments had to be made while at sea. The teams identified islands near the mouth of the Mississippi River to wait out storms and quickly return to work. The Masco VIII crew constructed a hammock to keep the aerostat out of water pooling on deck. The UCLA plane conducted 6+ hours of aerial surveys, identifying frontal features and producing nearly instantaneous maps of the 10km x 10km region where crews deployed drifters, gliders, and drift cards. The Masco VIII team imaged the drift cards with the aerostat for six hours. The Walton Smith team surveyed a freshwater front’s leading edge, releasing drifters and a glider for continued data gathering.

Top left: Jeroen Molemaker prepares the UCLA plane. Bottom left: Aerial view of LASER operations. R: Aerial surveys found strong frontal features. (Photos: Ozgokmen)

Crews were on their way to the next site but had to return to island shelter as a forth storm passed. Long hours and rough conditions began taking a toll: equipment malfunctions caused the aerostat to tear, the planes’ imaging equipment needed repairs, the Masco VIII’s internet stopped, and the Walton Smith’s water filtering pump broke requiring strict water rations. But everyone rallied. UCLA, Scripps, and the NASA/JPL aircraft jointly surveyed drifters, final deployment sites, and fronts. Making up lost time, three pilots took shifts on the UCLA plane and conducted a 110-hour around-the-clock mission.

“The aerial observation crew’s determination and the maps they produced injected Red Bull into LASER, giving the team tremendous focus to capture some of our most valuable data.”Professor Tamay Ozgokmen, Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami and CARTHE Director

(Click to enlarge) Some of the LASER operational team, L to R: Ming Shao, Angelique C. Haza, Karthrine Howe, Hanjing Dai, Laurent Grare, Alexander Soloviev, Guillaume Novelli, Tamay Ozgokmen, Eric D’Asaro, Cedric Guigand, Maristella Berta, John Kluge, Sharon Chinchilla, Nathan Laxague, Andrey Shcherbina, Chris MacKay, and Michael Ohmart. (Photo provided by CARTHE)

Over a 14-hour period, teams deployed one drifter every six minutes and released drift cards tracking them and a nearby front with the aerostat for nearly seven hours. They deployed gliders, buoys, and took shipboard measurements and imagery of air-sea fluxes, density, and surface and subsurface structures. Again, they scurried for shelter from yet another storm, but their priority work – capturing small-scale ocean processes that had never been measured – was done.

The Masco VIII steamed home to Key West while the Walton Smith crew found and inspected 18 drifters for damage. Aerial observations located 100+ drifters converging near the Deepwater Horizon site, so the Walton Smith crew released the 3D Lagrangian floats to measure vertical velocities there. They also completed a 24-hour moving-vessel-profiler survey and then headed to Miami. Safely home on February 15, they celebrated their successful month-long field campaign, happy to hear that over four million drifter position transmissions had already been received.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The RV Walton Smith steaming to the Desoto Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo: Novelli)

A period of introspection and data analysis follows. LASER’s millions of datapoints and images presents organization challenges and requires automated methods for quality control and analysis. Preliminary evaluation shows that the innovative approach of high-resolution SST and drifter data revealed small scale ocean structures not previously observed. LASER’s wealth of information can be leveraged for years to come as its data is made available in the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information and Data Cooperative (GRIIDC) system.

“LASER pushed the boundaries of ocean observations, furthering our understanding about the processes that govern upper-ocean transport. Lessons learned from LASER will help us do an even better job in the next experiment.” Jeroen Molemaker, University of California at Los Angeles and LASER’s Aerial Observations Chief Scientist

CARTHE’s next experiment, Submesoscale Processes and Lagrangian Analysis on the Shelf or SPLASH, will build upon their previous Surfzone Coastal Oil Pathway Experiment or SCOPE that measured processes influencing the last mile of oil transport. Their subsurface plume research is combining laboratory and numerical modeling to understand how hydrocarbons move through the water column.

Advancing ocean science wasn’t the only thing LASER accomplished – it provided field experience and professional development for graduate students and young scientists, using a bigger-picture interdisciplinary approach to investigate ocean processes.

Scientists will use data from GLAD, SCOPE, LASER, and SPLASH to construct a more complete picture of transport pathways and physical processes near the Deepwater Horizon site and continental shelf regions. This information will assist in reconstructing flows above and below the sea surface, allowing for improved retrospective analysis of spills and transport predictions in future emergencies. CARTHE’s research has far-reaching applications with new scientific insights that can inform navigation, energy production, climate science, hurricane predictions, search and rescue, and beach safety.

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This research was made possible in part by a grant from the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) to theConsortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE).

Videos + Lesson Plans: Dispatches from the Gulf Documentary

Screenscope, Inc. has completed production of three Dispatches from the Gulf documentary films, which features scientists working to better understand the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Dispatches from the Gulf is part of the Journey to Planet Earth series and is narrated by Matt Damon.

All three films and corresponding educational materials are available to watch for free below. They are also available (along with 50 short videos designed to accompany the documentaries) on the Dispatches from the Gulf YouTube Channel. Major funding for these additions to Journey to Planet Earth was provided by the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative – scientists working together to understand and restore the health of marine and coastal ecosystems.

Dispatches from the Gulf:

In the years after Deepwater Horizon, a global team of scientists investigates the environmental health of the Gulf and its impact on local communities. A coalition of academic institutions, government, and NGOs are working together to protect and restore one of our planet’s most valuable natural resources. Their ultimate goal is to learn how to cope with future oil spills.

Educational Materials:

Dispatches from the Gulf 2:

The unprecedented scientific mission to study the lasting impacts of Deepwater Horizon continues. Barely half of the pre-spill dolphin population survives, their calves dying or miscarried. Fish hearts cannot beat properly. Crab burrows leak oily rivulets into wetlands poisoning fish nurseries. Will this ecosystem recover? Will we be able to prevent future oil spills and the ensuing environmental devastation?

Educational Materials:

Dispatches from the Gulf 3:

“Has the Gulf of Mexico recovered from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill?” As the tenth anniversary of the disaster approaches, this question is regularly posed. Scientists have spent nearly that long studying its environmental impact on humans, wildlife, and the ecosystem. They provide assessments of the current state of the Gulf, but lingering questions are challenging their ability to predict the long-term impacts.

Educational Materials:

Educators Guide for Episode 16: Dispatches from the Gulf 3

What Can Horse Flies Tell Us About Marsh Health?

A greenhead horse fly partakes in a blood meal. (Photo by Claudia Husseneder)

Greenhead horse fly larvae live in Spartina marshes and are the top predator in the coastal wetlands invertebrate food chain between Texas and Nova Scotia.

Drs. Lane Foil and Claudia Husseneder discovered reduced genetic variation and severe declines in adult and larval horse fly populations living in oiled marshes, which showed that the horse flies could be an indicator species for post oil spill marsh health.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Foil and Husseneder a grant to build on their previous research and develop a reliable, cost-efficient tool for measuring marsh health using this horse fly. Foil and Husseneder began researching the abundance and genetic diversity of horse fly populations in oiled and unoiled Louisiana Spartina marshes in 2010. They will use historical and current samples of adult horse flies, their larvae, and the surrounding marsh soil to determine if adult horse fly populations have recovered and how their larval food web can be used to assess marsh health.

(Click to enlarge) The researchers sampled horse flies in oiled (Jefferson and Plaquemines Parishes) and unoiled (Cameron and St. Mary Parish) areas. (Provided by Lane Foil and Claudia Husseneder)

The researchers will use metagenomic sequencing to describe the invertebrate food web in soil samples and horse fly larvae stomach contents collected from oiled and unoiled marshes. Data will reveal the groups of organisms and level of diversity that the larvae need for healthy growth and development and if oiling alters the presence of their prey. The team will then develop a tool that uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) – a technology that generates copies of a certain DNA region until it is prevalent enough to be detectable – to search certain genetic markers in soil and determine if the taxa needed for a healthy food web are present or absent.

“The species that we picked is native and tightly bound to the marsh,” said Husseneder. “If everything that the larvae need to develop is present, then we can assume the marsh is healthy enough to support this top-level predator. If not, then the marsh is likely compromised.”

Horse flies are collected using traps like this one located in Grand Bayou, Louisiana. (Photo by Claudia Husseneder)

Larval sample collection and genomic sequencing are expensive and time-consuming. The project’s PCR tool will offer a timely, cost-efficient, and easy alternative that scientists and citizens with access to a high-school-level molecular laboratory can use to screen soil samples and assess marsh health. The tool could also be expanded to include and apply data from studies of different species in different habitats.

Foil commented, “We have a specialty area that we are contributing to a much larger area of science. I believe the tools we are developing will be very important in helping other scientists and that what we learn from them will help us better adapt our tools. As we and other researchers make our information available, we can start to put together the big puzzle of what actually happened in the marsh.”

The project’s researchers are Lane Foil and Claudia Husseneder at the Louisiana State University Agricultural Center. Their project is A Study of Horse Fly (Tabanidae) Populations and Their Food Web Dynamics as Indicators of the Effects of Environmental Stress on Coastal Marsh Health.

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Grad Student Timm Tracks Crustacean’s Oil Spill Recovery

Laura Timm keeps careful records of collected species, including the number of individuals and how they are preserved. (Photo credit: Dr. Dante Fenolio)

Laura Timm examines connections among shellfish ecology and evolution to help scientists understand how the Deepwater Horizon oil spill affected certain Gulf of Mexico species: “My work focuses on establishing pre-spill baselines and comparing them to samples taken 3-7 years after the oil spill, providing a timeline of crustacean recovery.”

Pursuing a Ph.D. in biology at Florida International University (FIU), Laura is a GoMRI scholar with the DEEPEND consortium. She talks about her journey from her landlocked childhood to a life exploring Gulf health and resilience.

Her Path

A Minnesota native, Laura credits summer trips to California with igniting her passion for marine science: “I would spend hours exploring tide pools, completely enthralled by the biodiversity I saw there, which was unlike anything I had seen in my home state.”

A high school genetics class inspired her to pursue a deeper, molecular-level understanding of organisms and systems, which she did at Texas A & M University at Galveston. There, she completed a research project on the Sipunculan worms’ genetic connectivity in the Sea of Japan, working in Dr. Anja Schulze’s phylogeny and population genetics lab. “Studying genetics in marine invertebrates was the perfect combination for me,” said Laura.

Laura holds samples of A. purpurea and S. robusta, two shrimp species she is studying, and prepares them for ddRAQseq analysis. (Photo credit: Dr. Dante Fenolio)

Laura spent a year after graduation as a volunteer coordinator for a local nonprofitSMART Family Literacy program and as an after-school programs instructor for the Galveston Independent school district. She coached soccer, led a film class, tutored, and developed enrichment courses. These experiences sparked her desire to further others’ learning.

Laura wanted to continue her marine genetics studies and her newly-discovered education interest, so she searched graduate programs that might offer both. She and Dr. Heather Bracken-Grissom at FIU began communicating after learning they had similar interests in Gulf health and marine education. Laura began her Ph.D. program and assisted Dr. Bracken-Grissom in writing the DEEPEND grant proposal for oil spill research, which GoMRI funded in 2015.

Her Work

Laura studies nine crustacean species to explore Gulf genetic diversity and population connectivity, seeking answers to several questions: What kind of genetic diversity can be found in the deep Gulf? How well are the distinct populations connecting and communicating throughout the larger ecosystem? How has the oil spill impacted diversity and connectivity? What recovery, if any, can be seen since the spill? And, is the Gulf a genetically closed system or is there migration into and out of the Gulf?

A.purpurea, a Gulf shrimp species that that spews a glowing bioluminescent cloud from its mouth when attacked, is one of the crustaceans Laura and Team Crusty are studying. (Photo credit: Dr. Dante Fenolio)

“I’m particularly interested in diversity because this can be a good proxy for health of the population and the ecosystem,” Laura said. Genetic connectivity can indicate species’ recovery and resilience potential, as she explained, “If crustaceans are migrating, they have an adjacent gene pool that may be capable of genetically rescuing their population. If it’s not there, recovery potential is substantially reduced.”

Laura, together with science teams at the Bracken-Grissom’s and Dr.Tamara ‘Tammy’ Frank’s labs, leads the crustacean sample collection and processing protocols for the DEEPEND project. Their group, known as ‘Team Crusty,’ uses large sampling nets to collect crustaceans then identifies species and preserves samples for population genetics studies. Back onshore, the Bracken-Grissom team processes the samples and extracts DNA.

That’s when the fun and patience begins. Laura uses a new method, ddRADseq (double digest Restriction-site Associated DNA sequencing) for genetic analysis. Traditional methods allow scientists to sequence hundreds to thousands of base pairs in one organism, whereas this protocol does so across many individuals at once. It can take Laura a month for ddRADseq sample preparation, another month to six weeks for sequencing, and an additional month or more for data analysis. The time and effort involved are worth it to Laura as she gets a thorough genetic analysis for her research and optimizes the next-generation sequencing protocol for others’ use.

Her Learning

Laura presents her research at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystems Science conference in Tampa, FL. (Photo credit: April Cook and Nina Pruzinsky)

Laura credits DEEPEND researchers with showing her the strength of multi-disciplinary studies, “Our team includes labs working on stable isotopes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in our biological samples,” she said. “Only recently have I truly realized how much that adds to the ‘story’ my data will tell.”

The comradery among their diverse group makes the work enjoyable, too. Laura describes her genetic sequencing work with graduate student Ms. Emily Warschefsky, “Together we have crawled through the theory behind the method and conceptualized nearly every aspect of the protocol. Many a-ha moments have occurred during this process.”

Laura particularly enjoyed meeting Jonathan Puritz and Shannon O’Leary, who are at the forefront of ddRADseq, at the recent Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference. She plans to use one of their data processing programs and is happy to have had this opportunity to network with experienced scientists who are asking the same questions.

Her Future

Laura Timm, Florida International University, works with the DEEPEND consortium to learn how Deepwater Horizon oil may have impacted the Gulf’s crustacean population. (Photo credit: Joseph Ahrens)

Laura’s dissertation is taking shape. She would like to continue working in science, either in academia or industry. Her earlier work in K-12 education, coupled with DEEPEND’s Education & Outreach program, has made her passionate about furthering STEM education wherever her career path goes.

“I was fortunate to have skilled, enthusiastic teachers throughout my education who fostered my excitement for learning,” Laura reported. “Too often, I meet students who have lost that passion. I would like to work toward improving STEM education through teacher workshops, classroom activities, school visits, and relationships with professional scientists.”

Praise for Laura

Dr. Bracken-Grissom recalls that Laura joined her lab as a Ph.D. student in 2013 and received the prestigious FIU Presidential Fellowship to support herself during graduate school. “I am honored to have Laura selected as a GOMRI scholar,” she said.

Bracken-Grissom describes Laura as “the full package,” pursuing important research linking ecosystem health to population diversity and connectivity. She credits Laura with optimizing a next-generation sequencing technique that will allow other scientists to advance this research using cutting-edge techniques in population genetics. She states that Laura puts as much energy into mentoring undergraduate students as she does into her own research, helping her excel as a teacher, student, and scientist.

“Laura has become a leader in my research group and is making great progress,” said Bracken-Grissom. “She has completely immersed herself in the DEEPEND consortium, participating on EVERY research cruise and going above and beyond to take full advantage of this project’s opportunities.”

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Laura Timm and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

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Smithsonian Features Blog about Sharing Gulf of Mexico Big Data

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The Smithsonian Ocean Portal posted a blog that describes the needs and challenges of sharing scientific data, especially unique data collected after a disaster such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Featured are insights from Marcia McNutt, Editor-in-Chief of Science Magazine, and Chuck Wilson, Chief Scientist for the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative.
The blog begins with how children are taught that sharing is a good thing but, over time, adults may shift their thinking towards holding back. The blog explains why, when it comes to scientific data, sharing is best for the greater good.

Read the Ocean Portal Blog: Do You Have The Answer? Sharing Big Data in the Gulf of Mexico

Read about the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative’s scientific data collection and legacy here.

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GoMRI and the Smithsonian have a partnership to enhance oil spill science content on the Ocean Portal website.

Trailer: Dispatches from the Gulf (2016)

Dispatches From The Gulf (Credit: Screenscope) The Deepwater Horizon oil spill initiated an unprecedented response effort and mobilized the largest, coordinated scientific research endeavor around an ocean-related event in history; the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI).

The Screenscope film production company is developing “Dispatches from the Gulf” to help tell the story about the scientists involved and their research to improve society’s ability to understand, respond to, and mitigate the impacts of petroleum pollution and related stressors of the marine and coastal ecosystems. The movie will air later this year as a new episode of the award-winning Journey to Planet Earth Series.

For additional information about the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative:

Watch this video: The Making of a Ten-Year Gulf of Mexico Research Program;
Use the GoMRI Research Information System to learn about funded projects, people, and publications; and
Use the GoMRI Information and Data Cooperative to discover and access scientific datasets resulting from GoMRI-funded research.

“Dispatches from the Gulf” is made possible in part by a grant from The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI). TheGoMRI is a 10-year independent research program established to study the effect, and the potential associated impact, of hydrocarbon releases on the environment and public health, as well as to develop improved spill mitigation, oil detection, characterization and remediation technologies. An independent and academic 20-member Research Board makes the funding and research direction decisions to ensure the intellectual quality, effectiveness and academic independence of the GoMRI research. All research data, findings and publications will be made publicly available. The program was established through a $500 million financial commitment from BP. For more information, visit http://gulfresearchinitiative.org/.

Researchers Inspire Future Oceanographers!

Boy Scouts attending the 2016 Advance-a-rama at UGA, taking water samples at Lake Herrick (Photo provided by ECOGIG)

The Spring Boy Scouts Advance-A-Rama (AAR) program has been conducted for over 25 years by volunteers from the Northeast Georgia Council’s Cherokee District. The AAR is hosted by the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. In recent years, over 200 scouts from troops in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee have registered for the Spring AAR. This year’s event was held on February 27th, 2016 and involved several departments on UGA’s campus.

Ecosystem Impacts of Oil & Gas Inputs to the Gulf (ECOGIG) Graduate students Andy Montgomery and Ryan Sibert, along with ECOGIG outreach personnel and marine science faculty, taught a class on oceanography to twelve boy scouts in order to fulfill some of the requirements the scouts needed to earn their oceanography badges. Some highlights of the event involved learning about the different branches of oceanography, why studying the oceans are important, and the cool technology and tools scientists use to do their research. There were several hands on activities involved during the day- the scouts built their own plankton nets and traveled to a nearby lake to sample for plankton using their nets. They also collected water samples and analyzed those in the lab to learn about the nutrients available for the plankton in the lake. They also got to observe and identify the plankton they collected under microscopes.

It was a great event that inspired a few future oceanographers in the group! To view photos from the event, check out our facebook album!

Sea Grant to Host Two Oil Spill Seminars in April 2016

Click to view Information on Sea Grant Oil Spill Seminars in April 2016

These seminars will be streaming live so you can participate remotely.

April 6 in Austin, TX: Chilling with your chums: How did the oil spill impact Gulf fisheries? Register here. More info here.
April 14 in Mobile, AL: Where did the oil go? Register here. More info here.

Grad Student Rogers Traces Gulf Oil as Scientific CSI

Kelsey Rogers collects samples of sediment particles onboard the R/V Endeavor’s laboratory. (Photo provided by Professor Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Kelsey Rogers looks for evidence of oil and methane intrusion into Gulf of Mexico water and sediment, but finding these hydrocarbons is only the beginning of her work. Like a scientific crime scene investigator, Kelsey analyzes the chemical fingerprints of oil and gas and uses them to identify their source, such as from an oil spill or a natural seafloor seep.

Currently working towards her Ph.D. in Oceanography at Florida State University (FSU), Kelsey is a GoMRI Scholar with the ECOGIG consortium. Kelsey talks of her journey from geology to oceanography and how every step along the way is important.

Her Path

Kelsey Rogers onboard the R/V Endeavor, one of five field expeditions she participated in, collecting water and sediment samples in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Ryan Sibert, Ph.D. Student, University of Georgia)

“As a kid I had a huge rock collection—I loved to pick up anything shiny on the ground,” Kelsey recalled. She realized after her first undergraduate geology class at the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill that she could make a career out of something that had always fascinated her. Working in the UNC isotope geochemistry lab, Kelsey wrote a research paper about using carbon isotope evidence from deer teeth to identify where the animals lived.

“Carbon isotopes are really awesome,” Kelsey said of her favorite research tool. “You can trace any number of things with them.”

FSU oceanography professor Dr. Jeff Chanton frequently collaborated with researchers at UNC, where he previously studied and taught. Chanton was using isotope analyses to track the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and its potential impacts on the marine food web. Kelsey learned about Chanton’s oil spill research and saw a natural fit with her ecological research using carbon isotopes. She joined the first ECOGIG project as a master’s student in 2012 and also conducted research with the Deep-C consortium. Kelsey continues her graduate work with Chanton as a research team member with the second ECOGIG consortium.

Her Work

Kelsey Rogers processes samples onboard the vessel’s wet lab. (Photo provided by Kelsey Rogers, courtesy of Deep-C)

Kelsey identifies the carbon isotopes in Gulf particulate and sediment samples to track oil and methane through the marine ecosystem. She has joined five Gulf research sea expeditions since starting at FSU, collecting sediment at various depths and freezing them for lab processing. She also collected water column samples 20 liters at a time, then filtered and dried suspended particles for later lab isotope analysis.

Kelsey treats the samples with an acid wash to remove calcium carbonate from shells that could interfere with lab processing. Using a mass spectrometer at FSU, she calculates the stable carbon isotopes and then sends them to the University of Georgia to analyze their radiocarbon levels. These tests can take up to six weeks.

Certain key isotope numbers serve as chemical fingerprints, signaling that the samples contain oil and methane. Kelsey studies the stable and radiocarbon levels to determine how much oil and/or methane is present, how old it is, and where it originated. Natural seeps in the gulf are like hydrocarbon springs, releasing oil and methane to the Gulf’s water column. Kelsey can trace these hydrocarbons’ path through the water column using the carbon isotopes. She has found hydrocarbons consistent with a Deepwater Horizon point source and from GC 600, the largest natural seep in the Gulf.

Her Learning

Kelsey states emphatically that working on GoMRI projects has honed her skills while deepening her love for science. She credits the Compass science communication workshops with teaching her how to more clearly share her findings with different audiences.

Kelsey Rogers worked alongside marine technician Jason Agnich to collect water and sediment samples from the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Professor Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology)

The camaraderie among ECOGIG members has helped Kelsey develop professional friendships that will support her throughout her career. “I’ve met so many great people on these research cruises,” she said. “Everyone is so gung-ho about working together and helping one another. It’s a wonderful community.”

Kelsey’s advisor, Jeff Chanton, has taught her to go where her interests take her and not feel limited by her chosen field. Involved in many diverse projects himself, Chanton has shown Kelsey that oceanography skills are transferable to other subjects that strike her interest.

“With Jeff as my advisor, I don’t feel like I’m pigeonholed,” she explained. “He’s taught me you don’t have to do just one thing for your entire career—you can be creative.”

Her Future

Kelsey Rogers spent many hours processing samples in R/V Endeavor’s main lab. (Photo provided by Professor Joseph Montoya, Georgia Institute of Technology)

Kelsey expects to finish her Ph.D. in late 2017 or early 2018. Feeling drawn to an industry or government position, she wants to provide the most help in a future event, though she clarifies that might not be mitigation. “I don’t really want to do cleanup,” she said. “I want to get ahead of the problem.” She suggests finding ways to make exploration safer or helping to craft government environmental policies as possibilities.

Wherever she winds up, Kelsey believes all the steps along her journey are necessary and meaningful: “I started out as a beaker cleaner in the lab. But those beakers need to be absolutely sterile for the experiments to be valid. All the jobs in science are important.”

Praise for Kelsey

Researchers use a multi-corer to collect sediment samples in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo provided by Kelsey Rogers)

Chanton said Kelsey has boundless energy and is undaunted by difficult tasks. Her great attitude has led to a leadership role in the Thalassic society, FSU’s graduate school organization. A Thalassic project manager, she sits on the executive committee and assists the president and vice president in organizing and running different functions throughout the year.

“Kelsey has a can-do approach that is contagious,” Chanton said. “On the ECOGIG cruises, she never rests. When her own work is completed, she surveys the deck to see who needs a hand with theirs.”

Chanton said that in addition to field missions, Kelsey also shines at outreach events where she is engaging and patient when explaining her work. He said she can make complex topics as simple as they need to be depending on the audience, and her natural confidence puts people at ease.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Kelsey Rogers and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

Visit the ECOGIG website to learn more about their work.

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Creating Improved Dispersants and Delivery Systems for Oil Spill Mitigation

(Click image to enlarge and for more info)

Research about commercial dispersant safety has seen increased efforts to identify benign alternatives and improve current dispersant systems since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Preliminary research suggests that dispersants formulated as gels may be a viable alternative to liquid dispersants and may address certain problems and concerns about Corexit 9500 use and application.

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative recently awarded Dr. Vijay John a grant to pursue the development of a surfactant gel dispersant and expand research that he and colleagues conducted about halloysite clay nanotubes as a dispersant delivery system.

John’s team believes that these biodegradable materials could have applications as safe technologies for chemical herding, a process that uses surfactants at the air-water interface to form oil layers thick enough to be burned or skimmed.

(Click image to enlarge and for more info)

John and his team are developing a gel formulation that contains all but two Corexit 9500 components – Span 80 and the solvent propylene glycol – and replaces a significant amount of the potentially harmful surfactant DOSS with lecithin, a food-grade emulsifier.

Surfactants help break up oil by lowering the surface tension at the oil-water interface, and early tests have shown that this new gel formulation reduces surface tension as successfully as Corexit. The team will investigate the physical characteristics of gel-created dispersions and assess the gel’s effect on oil degradation compared to Corexit.

The researchers will then examine if the clay nanotubes could be used to deliver the gel to an oil-water interface, similar to a surface oil slick. Problems with traditional liquid dispersants most often arise during and after their delivery to the ocean surface.

The gel has a crystalline mesoscale structure that ranges from hexagonal to sheet-like and onion-like multilamellar structures. (Images by Olasehinde Owoseni)

Responders apply liquid dispersants as a mist, but it tends to roll off of weathered surface oil and is often washed away before oil can be mitigated. However, nanotubes and naturally buoyant gel dispersants stick to the weathered oil and allow a more direct application of dispersant to an oil spill.

“It’s like a targeted drug delivery system,” explained John. “If you want to deliver drugs to only a tumor and not healthy organs, you have to contain them in something that will target the tumor. We’re trying to do the equivalent in the marine environment using naturally buoyant gel and dispersant-filled nanotubes to target the oil-water interface.”

Vijay John (pictured) and his team are investigating safer, more efficient alternatives to current methods of oil dispersal. (Provided by Paula Burch-Celentano/Tulane University)

The project’s researchers are Vijay John and Diane Blake of Tulane University and Yuri M. Lvov and Donghui Zhang of Louisiana State University. Their project is The Design of Synergistic Dispersant and Herding Systems using Tubular Clay Structures and Gel Phase Materials.

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Sharing Oil Spill Science with Non-Scientists: Effectively Communicating Complex Research Results Through Outreach and Education Programs

Photo credit: Leigh Zimmermann

The four Sea Grant Programs in the Gulf of Mexico region, the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, and the Consortium for Ocean Leadership jointly co-hosted an outreach workshop at the 2016 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science conference on February 1 in Tampa, FL, called Sharing Oil Spill Science with Non-Scientists: Effectively Communicating Complex Research Results through Outreach and Education Programs.

The workshop brought together outreach professionals in the oil spill science community to provide them with information and resources on techniques for sharing science with non-science audiences, tools and technologies for sharing information including social media, documentaries, webinars, and short films, and assessment and evaluation techniques for evaluating outreach programs. Breakout sessions gave the audience members an opportunity to discuss outreach methods and challenges when addressing a variety of audiences, including the general public, the media, K-12, and the fishing community. The workshop report includes a summary of those breakout sessions, slides from the PowerPoint presentations, and additional resources provided by the workshop speakers and panelists.

Click here for a copy of the Workshop Report.

Photo credit: Leigh Zimmermann

CONCORDE Begins Fisher Outreach Program During Fall Campaign

Heather Dippold (left- CONCORDE Education & Outreach) meets with Peter Nguyen ( right close- Mississippi State University Coastal Research and Extension Center) and Captain Nguyen (far right) to discuss data collection and the community meeting. Photo credit: Jessica Kastler

While Consortium for oil spill exposure pathways in Coastal River-Dominated Ecosystems (CONCORDE) researchers sampled the northern Gulf to determine the paths and impacts of river outflow, a pair of citizen scientists, also commercial fishers, assisted from their own vessels. Hoang Nguyen Van of D’Iberville, Mississippi, and George Barisich of Ycloskey, Louisiana—Captain Nguyen and Captain George—took readings during the Fall Campaign as a carefully planned part of the overall effort to understand the physical and biological processes that dominate the area.

“We’re working to understand how oil could move through the coastal environment,” explained Outreach Coordinator Jessie Kastler. “This is very important to people who make their living harvesting Gulf fish, shrimp, and oysters.”

Captain Nguyen gathered data the last week in October in conjunction with the R/V Point Sur, while Captain George went out in early November alongside the Pelican. Both took readings on the depths at various GPS locations in the study area. They also sampled for water quality, but experienced some of the difficulties field scientists face in terms of weather and equipment issues presenting challenges to obtaining usable data.

Captain George stands aboard his vessel Peruga. Photo credit: Jessica Kastler

With the Fall Campaign effort behind her, Kastler is now concentrating on phase two of the outreach program. Both Captain Nguyen and Captain George come from cultures unique to the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts and common in the professional fishing community. Captain Nguyen is Vietnamese, one of many on the Gulf coast whose families came to the area as refugees from the Vietnam conflict in the latter part of the twentieth century. Captain George, on the other hand, is a Cajun who descends from generations that have relied on the Gulf for their livelihood. While many who identify as Cajuns have traditionally French surnames, large populations of people whose families originally hailed from the former Yugoslavia and the Canary Islands have been folded into the Cajun culture through the centuries. Each smaller subset of community has these traditions and cultural practices that color its approach to fishing. Understanding these nuances will help CONCORDE’s outreach staff better tailor outreach opportunities.

In light of this, Kastler plans to have Captain Nguyen and Captain George act as liaisons into their professional fishing and ethnic communities. With their assistance, CONCORDE will host community meetings to engage senior and early career scientists with area fishers. The evening programs will include an introduction to CONCORDE’s mission, an overview of what is currently known, and what scientists hope to learn. After the presentation at large, attendees will have an opportunity to join small groups of four to eight people—a mix of fishers, scientists, educators, and interpreters where necessary—to discuss the issues at hand.

Kastler says that while the overall goal is to educate the public regarding findings and to bolster the public trust in science through transparency, it’s important to stress that CONCORDE researchers can benefit from the contact as well. “We want to show members of the these communities that we want to learn from them,” Kastler said. “They’ve been out on the water for decades and know through experience what is typical for the area.”

Once the doors of communication are open, social media will be used to keep information flowing. Through Kastler’s leadership, CONCORDE already has an active presence on Facebook, where updates are posted regularly. During the Fall Campaign, educators and research staff blogged on the CONCORDE website from on board the research vessels. A goal of CONCORDE outreach is for fishers- or any local resident with questions about current issues- to turn to these outlets first for answers. “By the time we launch the Spring Research Campaign, I want people in the community who rely on the Gulf for their livelihood to know who we are and where we post information they can use,” said Kastler.

Grad Student Pinales Designs “Smart” Oil-Spill Detection Tool

Juan demonstrates Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data from the Deepwater Horizon incident. (Provided by Juan Pinales)

Juan Pinales is working on a computational modelling system that will aid oil spill monitoring efforts. He combines Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and oceanographic conditions recorded during the Deepwater Horizon incident to improve surface oil detection using a semi-automated machine learning method known as artificial neural networking.

This method will help the system’s computations “learn” to interpret new slick scenarios and identify sea surface oil more accurately as new data is entered and processed.

Juan is pursuing his Ph.D. in applied marine physics at the University of Miami’s (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and is a GoMRI scholar working on the project Monitoring of Oil Spill and Seepage Using Satellite Radars. He explains how a lifetime fascination with making things work led him to this research.

His Path

Juan’s research requires many hours analyzing imagery to improve computational modeling calculations. (Provided by Juan Pinales)

As a child in the Dominican Republic, Juan chose class projects that allowed him to flex his creative muscles. He enjoyed science courses that applied theoretical knowledge to solve problems. “I loved to create and produce things, especially from an engineering perspective,” said Juan, “and I always wanted to work with computers.”

Juan’s family moved to New York while he was in high school, and he later enrolled in the materials and engineering science program at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He enjoyed the chance to use materials to solve problems and created the Rumble Aide, an obstacle detection device for the blind, as his senior design project.

Juan briefly worked in industrial HVAC design after graduation, turning engineering schematics into three-dimensional products. The economic downturn sent him back to school as an Earth and Atmospheric Sciences graduate student (City College of New York) and a GED tutor (Bramson ORT College in Brooklyn), a role that honed his public speaking skills and raised his academic confidence. He continued mentoring younger students in the Summer High School Internship Program (CREST-SHIP), helping them learn STEM-related remote sensing applications and data analysis software, including QGIS and MATLAB.

While at the City College of New York, Juan received a graduate fellowship from the NOAA-Cooperative Remote Sensing & Technology (NOAA-CREST) program to monitor changes in Alaska’s freeze-thaw cycle using active and passive remote sensing instruments. This research taught him to incorporate SAR technology into his work. Wanting to continue this practice during his Ph.D. studies, Juan contacted Dr. Hans Graber, director of UM’s Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing (CSTARS) program, and joined Graber’s GoMRI-funded oil spill monitoring project.

His Work

SAR technology yields a complex, high-resolution map of the water’s surface, with oil slicks appearing noticeably darker than areas with no oil. Juan is creating an algorithm to help the modeling program correctly interpret the dark zones it sees. His goal is to have a product that needs minimal human input during a future spill.

Artificial neural networks are machine learning systems inspired by the human brain that can be trained with each new scenario. Juan analyzes SAR data using daily images and those from previous oil spills. He then updates the model’s program code to apply previous information to current scenarios, adding related inputs to teach the algorithm to differentiate between oil and things that look like oil but are not.

“The system is designed to recognize certain elements within an image. Things like wind fields can change the texture,” Juan explained. “The system is trained to recognize certain patterns and match those patterns to a desired output. Once the detection system is trained, the algorithm processes data and produces oil spill candidates.”

Juan presented an initial version of his project at the 2015 Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference in Houston, but says much work remains to be done. He communicates weekly with Dr. Graber and his CSTARS collaborators, John Hargrove and Michael Caruso, regarding his program’s progress. He’s currently working to reduce the time between data acquisition and output to aid responders in decision making and improve the system’s ability to distinguish natural seeps and certain weather conditions (low wind, surface roughness) from oil spills.

His Learning

Juan, though already familiar with field and satellite data, said that Dr. Graber had taken his understanding to a new level. “I am humbled that I have the opportunity to be here with people of this caliber,” he said of the UM research team working on the GoMRI project.

Juan did not know about ocean remote sensing techniques prior to attending UM. Working closely with marine field researchers has helped Juan to incorporate their methods into his project. “I’m engaging myself in different avenues so I can become a better researcher,” Juan explained, adding, “Every year I get better, and the algorithms perform better as a result.”

His Future

Juan’s focus is on improving his SAR oil-spill detection algorithm, preparing a draft of his first peer-reviewed paper, and finishing his Ph.D. program in 2018. He’s keeping his career options open, although he’s leaning towards a government or industry position.

“It can be difficult to see science as a viable path for a career,” said Juan. “But science has a lot of different applications. You can do things that are both important and relatable, things that shape government policy or change the market. You can have real world impact.”

Praise for Juan

Juan’s application caught Hans Graber’s eye because he had attended Graber’s alma mater, City College of New York. Familiar with the program, he knew that Juan would have the background to move into the challenging world of oil spill detection.

Graber recalled that during the Deepwater Horizon spill his team collected satellite data in real time from 21 sensors. Response teams were reacting in hindsight, never able to get ahead of the problem. He said Juan’s project could change that in a future spill. “Juan is a very enterprising and creative person,” said Graber. “He’s using a neural network, creating an algorithm with multiple sensors in mind.”

Graber compared Juan’s program to the human mind when it looks at a picture, saying most people would be able to look at an image of a forest and pick out the pine trees from the palmettos immediately even though their leaves are the same color. Graber explained that Juan’s algorithm, programmed to quickly make differentiations, will allow those monitoring our seas to immediately recognize emerging surface oil. “Juan’s project is very valuable,” Graber concluded, saying it would greatly decrease the environmental impacts of future spills.

The GoMRI community embraces bright and dedicated students like Juan Pinales and their important contributions. The GoMRI Scholars Program recognizes graduate students whose work focuses on GoMRI-funded projects and builds community for the next generation of ocean science professionals.

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Fact Sheets: Sea Grant Releases Educational Brochures on Dispersants

2491 The Sea Grant oil spill outreach team released three new informational brochures about the dispersants used to treat the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. These brochures synthesize peer-reviewed oil spill science for a broad range of general audiences, particularly those who live and work across the Gulf Coast.

Chemical Dispersants and Their Role in Oil Spill Response

Learn why and how responders use dispersants during oil spills, in general, and specifically during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Fate, Transport, and Effectiveness of Dispersants Used in the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Learn about research that addresses dispersant effectiveness and persistence in the marine environment and its first-time use below surface at the wellhead.

Responses of Aquatic Life in the Gulf of Mexico to Oil and Dispersants

Learn how dispersants impact aquatic life and how lab and field studies are providing better understanding about the implications of exposure to oil and dispersants.

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach Team offers public seminars across the Gulf Coast. Click here to view upcoming science seminars and read about recently-held events. To receive email updates about seminars, publications, and the outreach team, click here.

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GoMRI and the Sea Grant programs of the Gulf of Mexico (Florida, Mississippi-Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas) have partnered to create an oil spill science outreach program.

Fact Sheets: Sea Grant Publishes Deepwater Horizon FAQ and Beached Oil Brochure

The Sea Grant Oil Spill Outreach team released two new brochures that discuss Deepwater Horizon and beached oil.

Top 5 Frequently Asked Questions about the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Five years after the incident, tourists to the Gulf of Mexico still have questions about the oil spill. This publication addresses how the oil was cleaned up, where the oil moved in the environment, and the ecological and health impacts of the spill.

Navigating Shifting Sands: Oil on our Beaches : This publication highlights how oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was buried, how it moves around, and how scientists track oil.

CARTHE Blogs Document Researchers’ At-Sea Lifestyle

The Walton Smith, patiently awaiting departure. Photo by CARTHE.

Graduate student Nathan Laxague’s recent posts to the CARTHE blog describe the methods, experiences, and challenges of researchers working on the ongoing LASER expedition. You can read his entries here and here to keep up with the project’s development.

Excerpt from the CARTHE Blog: “… Walton Smith is somewhere off the middle Keys, dressed to the nines with fancy scientific equipment and filled with the scientists and crew who weathered driving rain, whipping hail (!), and ominously rough seas to put it there. The next few days, though spent at sea…”

Video: Deep Sea Amphipod

The short video depicts a small crustacean called an amphipod, which uses large claws to not only eat its prey but also use their resources to build a gelatinous home around itself. You can watch the video and read a bit more about amphipods.

Deep sea amphipod! Here we have a video of a deep sea amphipod! Amphipods are interesting little creatures! They are considered crustaceans. This amphipod species uses its large claws to prey on zooplankton, jellies, and siphonophores. The amphipod not only eats these creatures, but collects resources from them to build the barrel we see. The barrel we are referring to is the gelatinous portion around the amphipod! The barrel turns into the amphipod’s home and provides protection and camouflage! This is also where the idea for the movie Alien came from! Pretty sweet, huh?

Posted by DEEPEND_gom on Tuesday, January 19, 2016

One of many fascinating creatures in the deep Gulf of Mexico is the Melanocetus johnsoni. This anglerfish has a fleshy growth from its head (the esca or illicium) that acts as a lure. (Photo by Dante Fenolio)

The Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics (DEEPEND) consortium expands knowledge as a restoration tool for the Gulf’s largest ecosystem

Much uncertainty remains about impacts on the deep-sea environment from the 2010 oil spill that erupted more than 5,000 feet below the sea surface. However, knowing what was affected or what may change in the future is particularly difficult with little to no pre-existing knowledge about this obscure ecosystem. Environmental impact assessments of an area require some baseline of what lives and happens there.Scientists with the consortium Deep-Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico, or DEEPEND, are working to improve our understanding of the deep Gulf’s life and processes since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. DEEPEND recently completed the first year of a multi-year Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative grant. Consortium director Tracey Sutton, Associate Professor and biological oceanographer at Nova Southeastern University, shared some thoughts about their project, goals, and accomplishments so far:

DEEPEND scientists conduct midwater trawling from the R/V Point Sur using an opening-closing MOCNESS trawl with a 10 m² mouth area. (Photo provided by DEEPEND)

The energy industry is working in deep realms that haven’t been censused properly. Our research will help us know more about the deep Gulf than we know about any deep-pelagic ecosystem on Earth. We can’t see it, we don’t fish much of it directly, but it really matters.

Learning About the Deep Gulf

Understanding why the deep Gulf matters is one of the main goals for the DEEPEND research team. Prior to this project, some members of the DEEPEND team were studying the world’s oceans and learned things that changed their understanding of deep-ocean life, as Sutton described:

The scientific community has likely underestimated the amount of deep-pelagic fish biomass in the world’s oceans by an order of magnitude. These deep fish mediate a lot of carbon transfer through their grazing and consumption of plankton. The number of species in the Gulf of Mexico is high, and we are finding new things all the time – it’s one of the most species-rich deep-pelagic ecosystems in the world.

To collect samples at deep depths, researchers use long lengths (2.5 miles!) of conducting cable on the R/V Point Sur. (Photo provided by DEEPEND)

The DEEPEND teams seeks to expand knowledge about the deep Gulf as a restoration tool for this immense and poorly understood system and, thereby, improve our ability to gauge its health. Being able to gauge the health of the Gulf is tied to understanding its deep-water biomass, which Sutton referred to as their “unit of currency” for ecological studies:

To track an ecosystem’s health, you have to track living carbon or biomass, from microscopic plant life and zooplankton to larvae and animals. We need to understand how much biomass is out there, where it is distributed, and how often it replaces itself.
The DEEPEND research project continues the work that NOAA contracted Sutton and colleagues to conduct as part of the 2010 Natural Resource Damage Assessment. Their team led an exploratory survey that included 230 sea days, collecting data from three Gulf domains: the bathypelagic, or “midnight zone” waters (>1000 m depth), the middle “twilight zone” waters (200-1000 m depth), and the epipelagic “surface zone” waters. They realized there was an enormous amount of basic science that had yet to be conducted.

The DEEPEND project expands their past work to determine the deep Gulf’s natural variability on an annual basis, a critical component needed to understand effects of a specific event like an oil spill. Sutton said that building upon that initial ten-month continuous data set from 2010 provides an unprecedented opportunity to understand a deep-ocean system in a larger context.

Deep Sea Explorations

DEEPEND researchers pull in the nets of the MOCNESS to see what they have collected. (Photo provided by DEEPEND)

The DEEPEND team completed four expeditions in 2015 and plan to do the same in 2016 and 2017 to assess the deep-pelagic community through sampling, acoustical sensing, modeling, and laboratory analyses. They sort, count, and weigh the majority of samples collected while onboard, prepping them for more detailed analyses later. So far, they have collected 2,275 fish samples and identified 375 taxonomic groups and 72 species. They expect to discover new species like they did last year with a new anglerfish Lasiognathus dinema and a new dragonfish.

Hydroacoustics transducer (left) and transducer in sensing mode (boom lowered) on R/V Point Sur during DEEPEND cruise. (Photo provided by DEEPEND)

Researchers will use acoustic sensing data to identify layers of fish and their horizontal and vertical distribution at specific depths, which will help them see large scale patterns of biomass. They want to make their data available as soon as possible, especially for their biophysical modelers who will help them identify drivers of variability and investigate possible effects from the spill on ecosystem attributes.

Knowing where to collect samples in the deep ocean is challenging. Sutton described the surface as looking like one big mass of blue water, but underneath there is a lot of physical movement and structure. That is where the DEEPEND partners at the Naval Research Laboratory with their advanced computational models come into play. They tell the researchers what the sea conditions will be so they can collect samples across large physical features such as eddies and Mississippi River flows.

Data to Assess Change

Pachystomias microdon, the smalltooth dragonfish, is one of the few creatures on Earth who can produce red light. (Photo by Dante´ Fenolio)

The team will use data obtained during the 2010-2011 and 2015-2017 periods to establish time-series data for detecting ecosystem shifts or responses. According to Sutton, the DEEPEND project should produce enough data to model variability, which is rare for a deep system:

We hope to establish a kind of bellwether for the Gulf’s overall health and inspire long-term monitoring efforts. These datasets will help us detect change. Our best shot for understanding the impact of an event is to understand what drives natural variability, the backdrop for detecting specific change.

A juvenile blue marlin. Shelf and slope waters in the Deepwater Horizon spill area serve as critical spawning, nursery, and foraging habitat of several important oceanic species (billfishes, tunas, swordfish, dolphinfishes). Ichthyoplankton surveys will help DEEPEND investigate potential ecological effects of the spill on early-life stages of pelagic fishes. (Photo provided by Jay Rooker)

The DEEPEND team is also seeking to understand the connectivity of the Gulf with the Atlantic Ocean basin. Sutton explained how this ties to assessment:

When looking at the impact of a specific event like an oil spill, you need to know if the things that live in the Gulf are residents or if they are part of a larger continuum of life that flux into and out of the Gulf. These are two very different things for assessment. If something is a resident, an event such as an oil spill could denude a whole population, and it would take time for it to replace itself.

Following the Gene Flow

The DEEPEND genetic studies are an important component to understanding life in the deep Gulf. Researchers will assign most samples a genetic barcode or fingerprint and then run a full genome sequence on selected model species. The team will look at the basic connectivity of individuals within a larger population, and genetically match an early life stage of one thing to an older life stage of something that might look quite different. This research will help improve understanding about the genetic diversity in deep sea populations, and Sutton explained how this improves impact assessment:

DEEPEND researchers found a new species of deep-sea anglerfish, Lasiognathus dinema, between 1,000-1,500 meters depth in the northern Gulf of Mexico (Pietsch and Sutton, 2015). Newsweek chose this species as one of the top 20 new species discovered in 2015. (Photo by Theodore Pietsch)

Assessing genetic diversity plays a key role in evaluating the status of populations and in conservation and management efforts. We can determine genetically if a population has undergone a recent drastic reduction of numbers. We will examine if the oil spill impacted population sizes of fishes and invertebrate species enough to cause a reduction in their genetic diversity.

Sharing Science Discoveries

The DEEPEND team will share their research with several audiences: the scientific community, the formal education community, and the broader public through private sector groups such as the San Antonio Zoo and the Oregon Coast Aquarium. The team is creating an image and genetic atlas of Gulf of Mexico fish, larvae, and microbes with over 7,000 samples photographed. Sutton explained why their group is particularly excited about outreach:

Squid Abralia redfieldi. (Photo by Dante´ Fenolio)

Deep-water environments have this “Jacques Cousteau” appeal. Apart from space, it’s one of the few places where we have a real shot at seeing something brand new, something that likely has huge teeth and light organs. We want to share our discoveries so people will know that the ocean is full of an amazing variety of life.

They already have experienced great success at reaching large student groups through the help of their partners at Whale Times, who developed an experiential online classroom event “Creep into the DEEPEND.” Last year 7,000+ students enrolled, and they and their teachers became Virtual Science Team Members. The outreach team plans to build on this success, as Sutton described:

Astronesthes macropogon have a bioluminescent whisker-like sensory organ that attracts small prey into striking distance. (Photo by Dante´ Fenolio)

There’s no better way to get the word out than to show people what’s down there. Creep into the DEEPEND used our activities, photos, videos, Skype interviews, and SeaMail to help students and teachers discover Gulf animals, research, and scientists. This year, we will offer 20+ Creep into the DEEPEND Summer Camp classes to 12 museums/science centers. There is plenty of fascination with science, and I think there is a little scientist in everybody.

Scientist Danté Fenolio, the DEEPEND photographer, has a new book that will be released soon that credits the consortium’s work: Life in the Dark: Illuminating Biodiversity in the Shadowy Haunts of Planet Earth.

Team DEEPEND

Dr. Tracey Sutton, director of the DEEPEND consortium. (Photo provided by DEEPEND)

Sutton considers one of the most valuable aspects of the DEEPEND consortium to be the many scientists who work together on different components towards a common goal. This diverse research group can ask better questions – and find better answers – than if they worked separately.

The DEEPEND project’s member institutions include Nova Southeastern University, Florida International University, the Naval Research Laboratory, Texas A&M University Galveston, the University of South Florida, the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, Florida Atlantic University, NOAA, Stony Brook University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the San Antonio Zoo, Durango Multimedia, Resphera Biosciences, and Whale Times . Click here for a list of individual participants and roles.

For more information about the DEEPEND program, click here or visit the DEEPEND website.

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