Plastic washes up on the beach in Manzanita, Oregon. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Years ago, I sat on a beach in Maremma, Italy, sifting the sand through my fingers — marveling at the multitude of colors. It was ancient mountains reduced to sediment and ferried to the beach. It was terra cotta roof slates and brightly hued ceramic tiles from the Amalfi coast, transformed by salt, wind, and waves into freckles of color in the palm of my hand. I brought a small amount of sand home in a jar, but the magic was lost in transit. Today, I am not confronted with the remnants of beautiful medieval cities here on this western shore in Oregon. There is no lovely evocative name for what crunches beneath my feet: plastic. Carried by currents, it accumulates at the water’s edge.
Beyond the horizon exists a floating gyre, called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch by some; others name it the Pacific Trash Vortex. It’s much larger than Texas and has cousins of similar size in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. They are composed mostly of plastic, which floats and flows with the currents, converging where they meet. Ultraviolet light and the ocean environment cause the substance to break down and infiltrate ocean creatures and habitats in ways we have yet to fully understand.
Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
The World Economic Forum says that by 2050, plastic in the ocean will outweigh fish.
I worry and wonder: where will we go when the ocean no longer offers a home and solace for even the smallest of living things? These thoughts propel me on my walk this spring morning, along my favorite beach in Oregon. Then, I spot something else.
ithThe Oregon Coast in the spring of 2016. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
From a distance, it looks as if the beach is covered in litter — like raucous partygoers retreated with the tide, leaving the cleanup for someone else. Intermingled with bits of brightly colored plastic, a closer inspection reveals that the curvy line extending for as far as I can see is a mass stranding of tiny little organisms called Velella velella.
Like the Portuguese man-of-war, but smaller, these hydroids live in large colonies out in the open ocean, drifting en masse along the surface of the water, much like those amorphous plastic gyres, but living. Protected by a deep blue pigment that acts as natural sunscreen, the critters flood the U.S. Coast Guard office with false hazard reports during those spring months when folks mistake the floating, giant blue blob heading toward the beach for an oil spill.
Velella velella or by-the-wind sailors. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
They are also called by-the-wind sailors – nicknamed for the tiny sail-like fin on top of the flat disc that forms the organism’s body. One oceanographer says that the angle of the sail is determined by where the velella grows in relation to land, so that it can tack away from shores. Out in the open water, wind gently propels the critters along the ocean’s surface, but spring and early summer winds, especially during El Niño years, blanket coastlines with millions of these wayward sailors.
Velella are always floating, for lack of a more accurate expression, face down with short, sticky tentacles that enable them to catch and feed on other pelagic organisms. When there is no food readily available, the sailors use photosynthesis to grow algae, which their jellyfish-like offspring consume.
I can’t help but think about perspective and what it might be like to have the ocean below you as your world-view – like an astronaut floating in lower Earth orbit looking down on this ever-changing terrain. It might be all right if one weren’t at the mercy of such powerful forces like wind, ocean storms, and the sort of human carelessness that chokes our ocean ecosystems with plastic.
This essay was originally published in IEEE Earthzine; it has been updated and revised.
Jenny Woodman is a writer and educator who would rather be at the Oregon Coast than just about anywhere else. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman
Free public water fountains and refilling stations help reduce plastic pollution from single use plastic water bottles. Image Credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program
It’s a beautiful day. The sun is out and it’s a perfect, warm temperature outside. With a free afternoon ahead of me, I decide to open up my WeTap app and go hunting for water fountains. The map is empty for a 200 mile radius around me, which I found out last week when I opened the app for the first time since arriving in Arkansas, meaning that either there are absolutely no water fountains to be found or many water fountains and refilling stations remain unmarked in this area. The search becomes a game, like geocaching. It doesn’t take long on my walk around the historic downtown of Rogers to find a public drinking fountain–in fact, I only had to walk two blocks. I take a picture, log the quality, and voila! Now, there is one new fountain on the map.
Marine debris floating near Hawai`i. Image Credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program
WeTap is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving access to clean drinking water via public fountains while reducing dependence on single-use plastic bottles. The founders of the organization created an app for mobile devices that maps public drinking fountains around the United States. With an extensive map already in place, users are able to access the addresses of nearby fountains and map routes to them, making it easy to find free, clean, single-use plastic free water. The fountain profiles within the app include information about the water flow quality, whether there is a dog bowl available, and if there is a water bottle refill station present.
Although the greatest concentration of public water fountains are in cities, fountains exist all over the country. Users can also participate by adding fountains not yet included on the map.
The efforts of this app, and many like it, are to provide resources that make it easy for consumers to reduce their consumption of single-use plastics, a growing environmental problem.
Single use plastics include anything that is made of plastic and used only once before disposal or recycling. The lengthy list of single use items includes household staples such as plastic grocery bags, water bottles, carry-out food containers, straws, cups, utensils, plastic packaging, and plastic wrap.
One of the primary issues surrounding single-use plastics is that they commonly pollute the ocean. It is estimated that 32 percent of plastic packaging worldwide is not properly disposed of; the debris often ends up in our oceans, where much of it remains for thousands of years, slowly degrading into smaller and smaller pieces.
Plastic pollution has an immediate and lasting effect on wildlife; one million marine mammals are killed by marine debris each year. According to NOAA, “Debris ingestion may lead to loss of nutrition, internal injury, intestinal blockage, starvation, and even death.”
Oceanic features can also help trap items in debris accumulation zones, often referred to in the media and marine debris community as “garbage patches.” Image Credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program
The fight against single-use plastics is happening worldwide in the form of public education, fines, and bans.
In 2017, Kenya banned plastic bags, with a $38,000 fine or four years in jail. The U.K. established bans across the country to limit plastic Microbead use in cosmetic and personal care products in January of 2018 and have estimated that the use of plastic bags dropped nearly 9 billion after taxes were introduced in 2015. Seattle is leading the way for cities across the U.S. with bans starting July 1 of this year for both single-use plastic utensils and straws.
With actions such as these, the momentum to limit single-use plastics is increasing around the globe.
Because of the many different plastics and variety of disposal streams, there isn’t one solution to the array of different issues surrounding plastic pollution around the globe. Luckily, there are many ways of approaching the problem, and tools such as WeTap hope to help lead the way.
Malea Saul is the 2018 Science Writing Fellow forProteus. She received her degree in oceanography from the University of Washington last year and has since been exploring the intersection of science, communication, and education. She is especially interested in how film and storytelling can help transform how we see and investigate the many intricacies of our planet. Follow her on Twitter @SaulMalea.
Deep sea coral in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
Nicknamed the Dragon’s Cave, this hydrothermal vent site on the Lōihi Seamount was covered in microbial mats. Using remotely operated vehicles, scientists on board the E/V Nautilus collected eDNA samples near these mats for NOAA scientists working to develop technologies to better know our ocean. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
All organisms shed cells. Just as you constantly slough skin cells, creatures in the ocean also leave traces behind, from enormous blue whales to deep sea corals to tiny microbes living at hydrothermal vents. These cells contain DNA, the molecule responsible for carrying genetic information for all living things.
Remains of an organism’s genetic material can tell scientists about the overall health of the ecosystem and the inhabitants. Environmental DNA or eDNA is an emerging area of study that may help researchers to better know the ocean and its inhabitants. eDNA is a DNA sample collected via an environmental medium such as soil or water; by examining the genetic traces left behind in that medium, scientists can study creatures without direct contact. This has been extremely useful for studying species that are particularly difficult to collect samples from such as Orcas and deep sea corals.
In the ocean, eDNA collection relies on water sampling in close proximity to specimens of interest. The sloughed cells from a species like a deep sea coral are pulled in with water samples, and those cells contain small amounts of DNA from the corals nearby. By amplifying sets of specific DNA sequences, coral biologists can use the small amount of eDNA captured in the water sample to identify the coral by its genetic fingerprint. This non-invasive technique could replace physical sampling for any species for which this technique is validated.
Coral sclerites imaged with a scanning electron microscope. Image Credit: NOAA NW Fisheries Science Center
Deep sea coral biologists have long been limited by the fact that physical specimens must be collected to make a species-level identification and taking coral samples, even prudently, is somewhat invasive. To make a species-level identification, the ultrastructure of the coral skeleton, specifically the sclerites, must be visualized by a scanning electron microscope. To minimize sampling, coral biologists have been searching for a new way to accurately identify corals to the species level.
Carol Stepien on board the Reseach Vessel Tatoosh deploying a device for sampling water for eDNA in the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary. Image Credit: NOAA/Kim Andrews
Today, eDNA sampling is changing the way corals and other sea life are identified, and this technology may prove invaluable in future research. With only five percent of the world’s ocean explored, to some it is a race against time to learn as much as we can before some biodiversity is lost forever.
Carol Stepien is the Ocean Environment Research Division leader at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. Her Genetics and Genome Group is working to develop technologies that will help researchers in the future to assess oceanic communities and how, or if, they are being impacted by changes in the ocean using eDNA.
“We know almost nothing about creatures in the ocean,” said Stepien, adding that whole groups of species are being discovered, sometimes daily. “What we know is a drop in the bucket about who is in the ocean, especially when you get into the deep sea.”
To help expand that limited knowledge, she envisions building large DNA databases for species identification.
Stepien’s lab is collecting eDNA samples from Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano in the NE Pacific Ocean, and from methane seeps along the Oregon and Washington Coast. They are focused on invertebrate communities such as clams and chemosynthetic organisms; her team is collaborating with other researchers who are looking at microbes. Ultimately Stepien hopes to develop genetic markers for DNA sequences that would aid identification through a massive collaboration between government, academia, and scientific institutions.
“We’re in the beginning of a scientific revolution of how to do this,” said Stepien. “It’s going to take a lot of different researchers working together — communicating, publishing, and developing these applications. We’re looking at developing highly diagnostic, fast and inexpensive tools for the future.”
Stepien thinks within ten years we will see something similar to Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s environmental sample processor (ESP), but with the capacity for eDNA monitoring, using drones and satellite transmission. The ESP instrument is basically a high-tech lab in a can that can be loaded onto an autonomous vehicle and deployed to collect and process samples without returning to land.
We need better records of creatures and organisms in the ocean and eDNA is an exciting tool because you don’t need to disturb the habitats or the sea life, according to Stepien. She sees a future where technology and scientific ingenuity are going to allow us to understand what is happening in the ocean in real time — problems like ocean acidification and hypoxia could be studied in situ without disturbing the ecosystem.
Her enthusiasm for the subject is contagious when she starts to talk about what is possible today and what we’ll be able to to in the future. “You’re able to start to focus and solve problems I never even dreamed of when I was in grad school,” Stepien said. “It is very fun and exciting as a scientist — I’m having such a good time working on this.”
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest; she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow for the Exploration Vessel Nautilus. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
Dr. Amber Hale is an assistant professor of biology at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. She uses molecular biology techniques in non-traditional model organisms. She is passionate about STEM education and science communication in her community.
Deep sea corals are colonial organisms made up of many individual organisms called polyps, working in concert to survive. Each individual has a job to perform in order for the entire colony to grow and thrive. While most people are familiar with colorful warm water corals found in shallow, tropical waters, these only represent about 15 percent of the world’s corals, according to the California Academy of Sciences’ Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology, Gary Williams.
California Academy of Sciences’ Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology Gary Williams, holding a coral sample in the E/V Nautilus wet lab. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
The other 85 percent of corals are deep sea or cold water corals, which are hard to study because it isn’t easy to get to the deep ocean with any frequency. Cold water corals differ from their shallow water counterparts in many ways, but one major distinction is that they do not rely on a symbiotic relationship with the photosynthetic algae, zooxanthellae (pronounced zoo-uh-zan-thella), that live inside warm water corals.
In the upper layers of the water column where the sun’s rays penetrate, most organisms like zooxanthellae rely on photosynthesis for food production. The algae barters food for rent in the relationship with their coral homes.
The sun’s light cannot reach the deep waters where cold water corals live, so these corals must eat nutrients found in debris that falls from the shallower layers of the ocean – this mixed debris is often called marine snow. Due to the limited amount of marine snow reaching the seafloor and the harsh environment of the deep sea, these corals are slow growing, but can be extremely long-lived. Bamboo corals have been aged to be more than 450 years old!
ROV Hercules hovers over a deep sea coral in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live Deep sea coral in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live ROV Hercules collecting coral sample. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live Deep sea coral in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
Environmental or eDNA is a DNA sample collected via an environmental medium such as soil or water; by examining the genetic traces left behind in that medium, scientists can study creatures without direct contact. During the 2016 and 2017 E/V Nautilus expedition seasons, water samples were taken in close proximity to deep sea coral species of interest in Cordell Bank and Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries. Corresponding physical samples were taken as well. With both the eDNA sample and the physical specimen, coral biologists worked to validate coral-specific eDNA protocols.
Biologists first amplify and sequence a set of DNA regions of interest from the eDNA sample, then these sequences are compared to corresponding sequences from the physical specimen. This creates a species-specific “DNA fingerprint.” Repeating this process for many species allows scientists to build a library of coral DNA fingerprints, enabling future biologists to confidently use eDNA samples to identify corals without the need for physical sampling.
George Divoky at work in the Arctic. Image Credit: Mike Morrison
George and Thomas during 44th field season on Cooper Island. Imager Credit: Mike Morrison
George and Thomas tagging and releasing Black Guillemots. Image Credit: Mike Morrison
For the past four decades, my field seasons on Cooper Island studying Black Guillemots have always begun with high spirits and a feeling of optimism. Experiencing the 24 hours of daylight in early June while documenting the return of individual birds to the island and their nest sites is always uplifting – some of these seabirds have been returning to Cooper Island for decades. Then, the days begin to shorten as nighttime returns to the Arctic. After monitoring the colony’s breeding activity for over three months, the end of the field season in late August lacks the intensity of the start of the season, but until recently, provided the gratification of having a large number of nestlings depart the island – with the hope many will return in the coming years.
The end of my 2018 fieldwork was as atypical and unpredictable as the first part of the season. In June I saw the colony had experienced a major decline in breeding pairs due to unprecedented high overwinter mortality of adult birds and many of the birds that did return failed to either lay eggs or incubate the eggs they did lay.
After those initial indications that many of the adults were in poor condition in late June, I was surprised to find that the chicks had high survival in late July and August – unlike the widespread nestling mortality witnessed in 2017. Last year’s low breeding success, with the younger of the two nestlings dying in almost all nests, was due to an early and major retreat of the pack ice in the Beaufort Sea, making the guillemots’ preferred prey of Arctic Cod unavailable to foraging parents. This past summer’s sea ice retreat was later than last year and atypical in that, although much of the Beaufort was free of ice by late August, a large remnant of sea ice remained near the Alaskan coast keeping the waters near Cooper Island cold enough for Arctic Cod.
A large remnant of sea ice helped keep Arctic Cod in the Black Guillemot’s foraging range this summer. Image Credit: Alaska Ocean Observing System
Our last two weeks on the island were busy. In addition to monitoring the growth and departure of the guillemot fledglings, we spent many hours capturing adult birds and outfitting them with light-sensitive geolocation and activity data loggers. The high mortality during the nonbreeding season of 2017-2018 shows that winter conditions affecting adult survival, rather than the success of the breeding season, may now play the major role in determining the fate of the Cooper Island colony. As part of the SENSEI project, we deployed over 30 data loggers on adults that will provide us with information on their movements, distribution and activities from this fall until they return to the Cooper Island colony next spring.
My field assistants, Thomas Leicester and Mike Morrison, and I did see individual variation in the ability of the guillemot parents to find cod in the ice-free but cold (<4 degrees Celsius) foraging area. While some chicks weighed over 300 grams in their third week in the nest, some nests had young with large variation in daily growth and weights remaining in the low to mid 200 gram range. While it was heartening to see nearly 40 guillemot nestlings fledge this year, due to the number of nonbreeding pairs and those that abandoned eggs, chick production per active nest was well below the one fledging per nest needed to sustain a stable population.
Light-sensitive geolocation and activity data loggers help us learn where the Black Guillemots go during the winter. Image Credit: George Divoky
While I typically use my first week after the field season to slowly transition into an off-island existence, as I adjust to a life with running water, internet access and no polar bears, this year I traveled to Great Britain for the International Seabird Group Conference in Liverpool. I have always felt a kinship with British seabird researchers as my initial interest in conducting a long-term seabird study came from reading the books of Ronald Lockley, who in the early 20th Century decided to live on an uninhabited British island where he could study seabirds.
After the conference I traveled to the Centre d’Etudes Biologiques de Chizé where I am collaborating with Christophe Barbraud and others who, as part of the SENSEI project, are analyzing the 44 years of demographic data obtained on Cooper Island.
In spite of the highs and lows of the past three months, I am glad to have completed another field season of our long-term study. The unexpected findings of this past summer show that our work has never been more important as we continue to monitor a rapidly changing Arctic. I look forward to 2019 and hope things improve for the Black Guillemot colony in the 45th year of our fieldwork.
This is the last field report from Cooper Island for 2018; it is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 44th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
Read more
Arctic Change, a Proteus Plumb Line Series featuring articles and field reports
18 members of the E/V Nautilus Lōʻihi Seamount's 31-person science team are women. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
This photo essay-letter was created on board the Exploration Vessel Nautilus during the 2018 Lōihi Seamount Expedition, a joint project between Ocean Exploration Trust, NASA, NOAA, and a number of academic institutions. The mission used this underwater volcano off the coast of Hawai`i as an analog for future space exploration to distant ocean worlds. Click on photo captions to scroll through the images and read more detailed bios of these phenomenal women working in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math fields.
Dr. Zara Mirmalek and Mary Nichols on the social deck. Zara is an ethnographer studying communication, and work practices among scientists and engineers conducting science and exploration in the ocean (with remotely operated and autonomous robots) and in planetary analogs (for future human and robotic planetary exploration). Mary is a video engineer and professor emeritus at Middle Tennessee State University. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Martynas Graban is the first officer on the Nautilus where she has served for two years. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Basia Marcks is an ocean science intern on the Nautilus and a PhD candidate at University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. Her research focuses on the interactions between biology, geology, and chemistry in past periods of climate change. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Proteus Executive Director and Lead Science Communication Fellow for the E/V Nautilus Jenny Woodman. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Dear 2nd Graders,
I really enjoyed speaking with your class this morning. It is always fun to tell people about the work we are doing on board the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus, a 211-foot science vessel outfitted for exploring the ocean floor with robots and studying what is happening in our planet’s ocean.
After we ended our talk with you, one of your comments stuck with me. Your teacher asked me to speak about what girls do on our ship, adding that you all thought only boys could be engineers and that made me a little sad.
As a matter of fact, I couldn’t sleep for quite some time even though it was 4:30 in the morning here off the coast of Hawai`i. But, I woke up with a plan: I’d gather all the girls on our ship (there are a lot of us) and take a photo for you. I thought maybe if you saw how many girls are out here doing exciting work, you might start to see how many important things get done by both boys and girls.
But there was one really big problem…
Jess and Antonella prepare Hercules for his next dive to an underwater volcano off the coast of Hawai’i. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Jessica Sandoval is an Argus pilot on the Nautilus and a Ph.D. student at at the University of California, San Diego. She works on bio-inspired robotics and bio-materials. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Antonella Wilby is a Ph.D. student at the Contextual Robotics Institute at UC San Diego, where she builds robots to explore extreme environments, in particular, ocean environments. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Wendy Snyder repairing Argus’s frame. Wendy is a graduate student at University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography; she is working on low power inertial navigation systems for glider type underwater autonomous vehicles (AUVs).
All the girls working on the Nautilus are very, very busy. Eighteen members of the 31-person science team on the Nautilus are women. We serve in all roles — from engineering to communications, from the very highest leadership position down to our student interns. There is no place on the Nautilus where women do not work incredibly hard.
I went to the back deck of the ship where Wendy, Jess, and Antonella were busy repairing our robots, Hercules and Argus. Without these robots, (we also call them remotely operated vehicles or ROVs) we wouldn’t be able to travel to the ocean floor to learn about volcanoes, octopuses, sharks, and creatures no one has ever seen before. As ROV pilots, a big part of their job is maintaining and fixing the ROVs – Wendy, Jess, and Antonella are engineers, so they are really good at what they do!
I ducked around the corner and up the stairs, following Mary and Nicole, but it turned out they were busy too. A camera needed fixing, and as video engineers, they needed to tackle the job. Cameras are very important to the work happening on the Nautilus; they are like eyes on the robots and they help the pilots to safely move around; cameras also record all the amazing images from places humans can’t safely go. As a retired journalist and video engineer, Mary has lots of experience to help guide and train Nicole who just graduated from college.
Repairing a camera housing — Nicole Gottschalk, video engineering intern, and Mary Nichols. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Dr. Leigh Marsh is a deep sea ecologist who specializes in the acquisition, processing, and analysis of ROV and AUV imagery and remote sensing data for vulnerable ecosystems in the deep ocean. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
One sample from the ocean floor is divided up into many samples for scientists all over the country. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Leigh Marsh and Megan Lubertkin in the Nautilus lounge. Megan is a graduate student at University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Brianna Alanis is a graduate student at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Her work focuses on creating autonomous proxies for primary production measurements using dissolved oxygen. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Our science data team — Leigh and Megan were also quite busy. They spent part of the afternoon brainstorming how to manage the thousands of images and samples being gathered with each dive, and they met with expedition leaders to share their ideas about how to do even more with the limited space available for so many scientists on the ship.
Then, I went to the wet lab, but another member of the science data team, Brianna, was busy organizing the equipment the science team uses after Hercules collects those samples and brings them back to the ship; one of her jobs is to prepare those specimens for scientists all over the country to study back on dry land.
Dr. Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert is a member of the Nautilus’s science/data team. She is doing post-doctoral work at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where she studies the microorganisms that live in environments where sunlight (or products of sunlight) cannot be used for energy.
Samples from the ocean floor must be divided up, preserved, and prepared for delivery to many scientists around the country. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Vice President of Exploration and Science Operations and Expedition Lead Nicole Raineault and Sam Wishnak, digital media coordinator for Ocean Exploration Trust. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
As the Vice President of Exploration and Science Operations for the Trust, Dr. Nicole Raineault works with the Nautilus team’s extended network of scientists to organize and plan the science objectives of the cruises. As an Expedition Leader she facilitates seeing those plans through on board the vessel. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
I ran over to the social deck, just in time to see Elizabeth rushing off to her lab. She had to place a bottle of seawater in an incubator, which is like a small oven. She wanted to test how long it will take her to process the samples Hercules will bring up to the ship from the volcano.
I was sure I’d be able to wrangle Sam and Nicole, but as part of the leadership responsible for the success of this and future expeditions, they were busy coordinating the hundreds of items that need addressing each day.
First Officer Martyna Graban helps survey the ship’s hull. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Ariel and Mugdha work on telling the story of this Nautilus expedition. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Science Communication Fellow Mugdha Flores is a marine biologist and informal educator; she loves teaching students about the ocean and aim to inspire them to become stewards of our ocean. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Thais Drummond da Silva is the third officer on the ship who stands watch on the bridge and is in charge of keeping everyone safe. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Speaking of the people who help this ship run smoothly, Thais and Martyna are officers in charge of running the ship so all this amazing science can happen. Today, Martyna took a crew out on a small boat to inspect the hull, and Thais makes sure everyone on the ship is safe at all times.
My friends Ariel and Mugdha were also busy, shooting video to help tell the story of science, ocean exploration, and marvelous feats of engineering.
Even I had to stop and take a break from writing this letter to you; Amy and I were needed in the studio where you saw us this morning. We had to talk to a group of people gathered at a museum in San Francisco – we showed them pictures and answered their questions just as we answered yours.
Dr. Darlene Lim is the principle investigator for this NASA SUBSEA project; she’s based at the NASA Ames Research Center where she is actively involved in the development of operational concepts for human scientific exploration of our solar system. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Darlene Lim in the wetlab with Jeff Seewald. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
Amy Smith and Jenny Woodman in the television studio speaking to a group gathered at a museum in San Francisco. Dr. Smith is an astrobiologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute; she studies where microbiology, astrobiology, and the origin of life meet. She seeks answers to whether life could exist on other worlds in our solar system and beyond. Image Credit: Sam Wishnak
Science Communication Fellow Ariel Waldman is the founder of Space Hack and serves as an adviser to NASA. Image Credit: Ariel Waldman
My last stop on this adventure was the lounge where Darlene was sitting at her laptop on a big leather sofa. As principle investigator for this project, her days are really long – she’s working even when she looks like she might be relaxing. When I found her, she was getting ready to go on NASA TV and talk about the work we are doing; two million people tuned in to watch her today!
I’m writing this letter because I’d hate to think that there are any young girls in your class who think it isn’t cool or possible for them to build robots or rockets, and I’d hate to think that there are boys who think they shouldn’t do the thing they dream about doing, whatever it may be.
Following science out to sea has taken me to some pretty extraordinary places. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
And, if you don’t want to be a scientist or engineer, but you love the sea creatures — if you dream about what it might be like explore the ocean, I have a secret for you: not everyone involved studying the ocean is a scientist or engineer. I’m a writer. My job is telling true stories about this work so people can better understand the world we live in. Folks like me — anthropologists, painters, teachers, filmmakers, chefs, and all sorts of people play a big part, making amazing things happen every day for organizations like the Nautilus!
Thanks for asking us such smart questions. I hope you will stay curious, have fun and keep exploring!
Jenny
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest; she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow on board the Exploration Vessel Nautilus. In 2016, she wrote her masters thesis on women in STEAM and continues to explore this topic in her work. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
This image of Jupiter’s Europa moon was captured by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s; scientists are studying deep sea volcanoes on Earth in preparation for future exploration to places like Europa where they expect to find oceans and hydrothermal activity beneath the moon’s surface. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute
On August 21, a team of scientists, engineers, and students arrived in waves, loaded with personal gear and equipment for deep sea exploration off the coast of Hawaii. The mission, a joint project with NASA, NOAA, Ocean Exploration Trust and a number of academic institutions, is to explore the Lōihi Seamount with remotely operated vehicles, or robots.
Conditions at this underwater volcano are similar to what scientists believe exist on moons in the outer regions of our solar system. Experts from NASA’s Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog (SUBSEA) team think it is likely that oceans and hydrothermal activity exist beneath an icy crust on Saturn’s Enceladus and Jupiter’s Europa.
Robotic dives at Lōihi also offer the opportunity to practice and develop protocols for future missions. Someday, when we reach distant ocean worlds, it is unlikely that humans will be able to enter into these hostile environments; it is more likely that they will deploy robots and explore from the safety of their ship or some other location, much like ocean explorers do today.
In order to develop protocols to guide those future missions, NASA and their partners have gathered a science team at the Inner Space Center at Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography; this team will remotely oversee and direct operations on the Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus here in Hawaii. The work will serve as an analog for expeditions where astronauts will communicate across great distances. Experiencing delays and possible technical difficulties first-hand on Earth will enable NASA and their partners to be better prepared for the challenges of deep space exploration.
Back on board the Nautilus last Monday, there were hugs and laughs as those who had sailed on the ship reunited and newcomers were introduced. We were eager to get going, but Hurricane Lane had other plans. The storm intensified and the Coast Guard ordered all ships over a certain size out of the port of Honolulu. Nicole Raineault, vice president of exploration and science operations for the Ocean Exploration Trust shared the news that expedition leaders and the ship’s captain, Pavel Chubar, didn’t feel the science team would be safe on board the ship during the storm. The Nautilus was going to ride out the weather in safer waters north of Maui, but the seas would be rough nonetheless – it was not going to be a place for non-professional mariners.
On Wednesday August 22, we repacked our gear, secured science equipment on the ship, and offloaded in Honolulu. As stores and restaurants closed all over Waikiki where we were staying, it was surreal to see the images of an immense storm heading our way while tourists poured in and out of the shops. The island chain is no stranger to powerful storms, but the last major hurricane occurred in 1992; Hurricane Iniki caused $3.1 billion in damage.
Hurricane Lane from the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA
Lane was expected to hit Hawaii on Friday or Saturday, so we stocked up on food and water in case the storm disrupted power and transportation. (Experts recommend your family’s disaster supplies include one gallon of water per person, per day as well as enough food, medicine, and creature comforts like activities for little ones to last at least two weeks. For more on how to prepare your family for disaster visit here and here.)
The slow-moving storm never made landfall on O’ahu, but caused catastrophic flooding to the Big Island, dumping over 50 inches of rain in just a few days.
On August 26, we were transported to the Nautilus via water taxi and immediately set off as teams worked to prepare equipment for operations on Monday morning. The seas weren’t quite as calm as most would like and many napped and stared at the horizon in an effort to quell uneasy stomachs. Most over the counter motion sickness medicines cause drowsiness (and mine was no exception — although the box was labeled “less-drowsy,” it would be more apt if it read “may cause light coma”).
The E/V Nautilus underway, heading towards the Kilauea lava flow. Image Credit: Jenny Woodman
We’re now our way to the Kilauea lava flow, a slow-moving eruption that has caused extensive damage to the Big Island since early spring. Data from the previous Nautilus expedition, Mapping Pacific Seamounts, included signals that look like little bubbles, which they’d never seen before.
Chris German is a senior scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and leader of the science data team for this expedition. “It is a process we’ve not had the chance to study previously,” German added as he explained that they are returning to the same spot in order to see if those mysterious bubbles are still present.
He and his team are eager to determine an ideal location future dives. The Nautilus team uses sonar mapping technology to both enhance our understanding of the processes occurring on the ocean floor and to accurately identify where to deploy the robots for exploration. “This may be another kind of hydrothermal system nobody’s ever seen before,” German added with a grin.
We expect to be able to see the flow area from a distance after breakfast Monday morning, and we’re looking forward to launching our first dive operation on the Lōihi Seamount at midnight (HTC) Tuesday morning. Whenever the robots are deployed, the video feed is live-streamed to viewers all over the world at www.nautiluslive.org.
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest; she is a 2018 lead science communication fellow on board the Exploration Vessel Nautilus. Follower her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
The Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus is a 211 foot former East German "fishing boat" fully outfitted for scientific exploration. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
The Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus is a 211 foot former East German “fishing boat” fully outfitted for scientific exploration. Image Credit: OET/Nautilus Live
I stood on the sidewalk swaying on solid ground, a phenomenon dubbed “dock rock” or “land sickness” by those who’ve spent time on boats. I looked over my shoulder at the big blue and white ship from which I had just disembarked with my usual grace and style. High tide made the gangway incredibly steep; I lost my footing and slid all the way down with my gear to the chorus of onlookers gasping.
After being at sea, a combination of exhaustion, adrenaline, and homesickness fueled a multitude of feelings. With a lump in my throat, I thought I might never get the chance to do something so unbelievably cool again. I had just spent two weeks with truly amazing people exploring the ocean floor – with robots.
Last summer, I served as a science communication fellow on board the Oceanographer Bob Ballard’s Exploration Vessel (E/V) Nautilus.
Our expedition took place in Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary. The 1,296 square mile sanctuary had nearly doubled in size since receiving its designation as a protected place in 1989. Prior to the expedition, the scientists responsible for managing the sanctuary lacked the resources to fully explore and understand what lived on the ocean floor, miles below the surface. We traveled along the Continental Shelf, exploring underwater canyons and steep cliff faces, collecting video footage and samples that were sent to hundreds of researchers around the country.
These observations were aided by two remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), or robots, named Hercules and Argus. The ROVs work in tandem, tethered to the ship and each other. Argus absorbs the ship’s movements and shines bright lights down on Hercules as it performs delicate maneuvers and operations below. Hercules is outfitted with multiple high definition cameras, a Kraft Predator arm, and a host of sampling tools that aid the Nautilus team in their mission to explore the biology, geology and archeology of wild and unexplored places in the ocean.
Whenever the robots are deployed the video is live streamed all over the world, allowing students, scientists, and fans to explore with the team. This technology takes humans to locations too costly, distant, and dangerous for in-person observations like active underwater volcanoes and hydrothermal vents.
Using the Nautilus’s technology and expertise in Cordell Bank, NOAA scientists were able to identify new deep sea habitats teaming with life. There were jellies, sharks, skates, and over 40 species of rockfish, swimming among deep sea corals and sponge communities – it was a remarkable experience from beginning to end. And, it turns out that last summer was not the last time I’d set foot on the Nautilus.
From August 20 to September 13, I’ll rejoin Ballard’s Corps of Exploration as lead science communication fellow for a joint mission with NASA, NOAA, and various academic centers. The expedition is part of a multi-year SUBSEA (Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog) Research Program.
We’ll be exploring the Lō’ihi Seamount – an active underwater volcano off the coast of Hawaii. The hydrothermal venting and geologic features found at Lō`ihi (sounds like low-ee-hee) are thought to be similar to what scientists expect to find on other, distant, ocean worlds. We will be testing equipment and protocols as well as collecting samples and video to learn more about this geologically active and unique environment.
NASA is watching how the oceanographic community works in unusual environments in order to develop protocols for space exploration. When astronauts eventually make it to distant planets, it is unlikely that they will be able to land their spacecraft and walk on the surface right away. Using robotic technologies similar to what is used in ocean science, those astronauts will conduct their observations from the relative safety of their spacecraft – just like many ocean explorers here on Earth.
In order to allow a very large team of scientists and collaborators to participate from land, most of our dives will run from midnight to 4 p.m., Hawaiian time (HST). You can follow these dives online at www.nautiluslive.org and updates will be posted regularly on the Nautilus’s Twitter feed.
I’ll be standing watch from midnight to 4 a.m. and noon to 4 p.m. – moderating the questions coming in from the audience and helping translate the complexities of this work whenever the robots are deployed.
Last summer, I had no idea what to expect as I nervously put on my headset and sat down at my station for my first watch shift. Over the subsequent hours and days, I learned about the science and biology of the deep ocean and the technology and teamwork that took us to this otherworldly place. I saw my first octopuses in the wild, graneledone boreopacifica, who brood their eggs for 4 years, and I learned that skate egg pouches are called mermaid’s purses. As I prepare to head back out, the work is more familiar, but I’m just as eager to see new and exciting wonders.
I hope you’ll come along and explore this blue planet with us!
Jenny Woodman, Proteus founder and executive director, is a science writer and educator living in the Pacific Northwest. Follow her on Twitter @JennyWoodman.
A lone Black Guillemot and sea ice off Cooper Island. Image Credit: George Divoky
A lone Black Guillemot and sea ice off Cooper Island. Image Credit: George Divoky
Black Guillemots and sea ice off Cooper Island. Image Credit: George Divoky
Mandt’s Black Guillemots. Image Credit: George DIvoky
George Divoky frets–with good reason. In 2016, CNN Correspondent John D. Sutter called him the man who is watching the world melt. The description is as distressing as it is apt.
George sends us regular dispatches from a small field camp on Cooper Island, about 25 miles east of Utqiaġvik, where he has studied a colony of nesting Mandt’s Black Guillemots for the last 44 years. Since his work began in 1975, the research has morphed into one of the longest-running studies of seabirds, sea ice, and climate change.
Guillemots look like small penguins headed off to a fancy party replete with ice sculptures and all-night dancing. Unlike other seabirds that migrate out of the region seasonally, they live out over the frigid waters year-round, only returning to land to breed and fledge their young–this makes them an excellent indicator of how climate change is impacting the Arctic.
Weather delayed the start of this research season in early June. While warm temperatures in the Arctic have made headlines in recent months, unusually late snow and ice kept the guillemots from reaching their nesting boxes until mid-June; the first egg was laid on June 24.
His communications are tinged with an effort to buoy spirits–I’m guessing his own more so than ours. This week, the bad news came first: a 29-year-old female died. He wrote that she had been banded during the first George Bush administration. (While many humans rely on a simple Gregorian calendar, George’s memories appear to be synchronized according to a timeline rooted firmly in geopolitics.)
Bad news was followed with happy; two siblings from the 2014 cohort returned and recruited partners for breeding.
Otherwise, it’s been a stormy week on the island. On July 20, he wrote that the wind was finally dying down. A bad week for the infrastructure, the camp’s weather station was blown over and part of the heavy-duty WeatherPort tarp separated from the frame, which caused a number of things to get wet. On Wednesday he saw record high rainfall for that date.
Egg laying hit an all-time low this year, with fewer breeding pairs than any previous year.
He’s asking questions about how changing ice conditions will impact these seabirds – his seabirds. In his most recent field report, he spoke at length about the relationship between the guillemots and nearshore sea ice. The location of the sea ice impacts how far parents will have to fly to access suitable prey for their chicks. Increased travel time means greater energy expended by parents – for seabirds that live predominantly out in open waters, it’s all about balancing resources and energy. The presence or absence of sea ice combined with the temperature of the ocean waters impacts the availability of Arctic Cod, the small nutritious fish the guillemots prefer.
George hopes the slowly departing nearshore sea ice will keep ideal prey in foraging range for the seabirds. He wrote, the cod is “urgently needed for the colony to reduce its current population decline.”
A MODIS image from July 11; snow and ice are cyan color while clouds tend to be more grayish. Image Credit: NASA Worldview
A MODIS image from July 16; snow and ice are cyan color while clouds tend to be more grayish. Image Credit: NASA Worldview
David Douglas is a research wildlife biologist for United States Geological Survey (USGS) Alaska Science Center; he and George are frequent collaborators. This week he emailed the MODIS images displayed above and wrote that Cooper Island was pretty well surrounded until July 16 when the persistent ice immediately around the island broke up and melted.
Studies like George’s will help scientists to better understand the ramifications of long-term warming and less sea ice for wildlife in the region. Impacts to wildlife will directly affect the lives of the people who depend on subsistence fishing and hunting for survival.
Warming Arctic conditions have persisted with 2018 reaching record lows for sea ice extent, according to a report published by NOAA and University of Alaska Fairbanks’s International Arctic Research Center.
Late ice formation and early retreat in the Chukchi and Bering Seas impacted local communities by making travel for subsistence hunting and fishing dangerous and, at times, impossible. Storm damage and erosion was worsened by exposed shorelines, left unprotected by a lack of sea ice. Island villages and coastal communities experienced flooding and property damage as well. You can read more about the storm impacts here and here.
The report attributes late and minimal ice coverage to warmer temperatures, particularly over the last four years. Increased temperatures combined with stronger storms helped break up weaker ice.
In 2018, there was less sea ice in the Bering Sea than any year since 1850, when commercial whalers began recording this data. Experts agree, loss of sea ice is a result of climate change. Continued warming creates a feedback loop where warming temperatures melt ice; without a reflective snow and ice covering, the ocean absorbs more of the sun’s warming rays and temperatures continue to rise.
Sea ice since 1850. Image Credit: NOAA and University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center (UAF-IARC).
As for future winters, what can people expect to see if warming continues at current rates?
“Communities need to prepare for more winters with low sea ice and stormy conditions. Although not every winter will be like this one,” concludes the report, “there will likely be similar winters in the future. Ice formation will likely remain low if warm water temperatures in the Bering Sea continue.”
And for George’s seabirds? How many birds will successfully fledge this year? How many will return next?
We’ll just have to wait and see.
This piece is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 44th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
MODIS image from June 5; snow and ice have blue/cyan color, while clouds will be lighter gray/white. Image Credit: David Douglass/USGS
Over most of its range the Black Guillemot is a nearshore seabird, occupying coastal waters during both the breeding and nonbreeding seasons, as do other members of the genus Cepphus. Pelagic or open ocean waters can offer abundant prey resources, but these options are often distant, patchy and unpredictable.
The nearshore typically offers seabirds a smaller but more reliable source prey base consisting of forage fish and benthic fauna from the ocean floor such as crustaceans or mussels.
The Arctic Ocean has extensive sea ice cover in the nearshore for the majority of the year; this presents a number of challenges to a nearshore species. Our work on the Cooper Island Black Guillemots has revealed a number of ways in which the species has met these challenges.
The current view from my cabin window illustrates one of the major problems guillemots face in the Arctic. Sea ice extends from the north beach of the island to the horizon and covers Elson Lagoon to the south. The only water available to the guillemots is a brackish pond in the center of the colony that provides no prey but is deep enough to provide sanctuary if the guillemots need to dive when pursued by an owl or falcon — regular visitors to the island.
MODIS image from July 9; snow and ice have blue/cyan color, while clouds will be lighter gray/white. Image Credit: David Douglass/USGS
While guillemots arrived on the island almost a month ago and egg laying is now complete, until recently the closest predictable open water where guillemots could find prey was approximately 20 miles away, off Point Barrow where winds and currents shift the sea ice creating an area of open water. This opening is called a lead. The Cooper Island guillemots stage there in April and May before coming to the island. (Editor’s note: Leads are important for wildlife, because they allow for access to oxygen in the case of seals and walruses and prey in the case of seabirds; you can read more from the National Snow and Ice Data Center here.)
This distance between the Cooper Island guillemots’ nesting colony and access to their prey resources during egg laying and incubation is in sharp contrast to what guillemots breeding in subarctic or temperate waters find at their breeding colonies. These birds occupy waters directly adjacent to colonies well before egg laying and foraging areas may even be within sight of nests. The birds breeding on Cooper Island (and likely all colonies of Mandt’s Black Guillemot Cepphus grylle mandti, the high Arctic subspecies of Black Guillemot) have responded to this spatial disconnect by having a well-defined periodicity in their daily colony attendance. Every day, the parent not incubating eggs and all nonbreeding individuals vacate the colony from approximately noon until midnight. The birds fly individually or in small groups to open water where they can feed for almost half the day before returning to the colony just as the “midnight sun” is at its lowest point in the sky.
Cooper Island beach with nesting boxes from 2015. Image Credit: George Divoky
While it seems individual birds could fly offshore to open water to feed anytime during the day, there are a number of possible reasons the observed colony-wide pattern of attendance and abandonment developed. For the half of the day when the guillemots are absent – from approximately noon to midnight – there is no evidence that Cooper Island supports a colony of Black Guillemots. It appears to be just a barren sandbar that happens to inexplicably have 200 scattered black plastic cases along with a small cabin surrounded by a bear fence. Falcons, Snowy Owls, and other predators moving along the barrier islands would have little reason to be attracted to this place.
The timing of the birds’ departure and return may be related to changes in air temperature and its effect on ice formation. On nights when the air temperature is below freezing (as it was last night), I have frequently observed the formation of new ice on the surface of the few spaces of open water in the sea ice directly adjacent to shore. This newly formed ice melts in the morning as air temperatures rise. Nocturnal formation of new ice in the waters adjacent to the pack ice reduces the amount of open water available for guillemots to dive for the prey.
This temporary daily reduction in foraging area could be expected to have been pronounced during the Last Glacial Maximum when air temperatures were lower and the ancestors of the Cooper Island guillemots occupied an Arctic refugium. The current pattern of colony attendance for the Cooper Island colony – foraging during the warmest part of the day and attending the breeding colony at night – could have evolved as a way of maximizing the amount of open water available for guillemots.
The large expanse of shorefast ice north of the island this year is persisting later than expected compared to recent years. While the nearshore ice may now be forcing the Cooper Island guillemots to fly further in search of prey, it could benefit the colony later this summer should ice remain in the nearshore close to the colony. In recent years a lack of sea ice when the guillemots are feeding young resulted in increased nestling mortality as higher sea surface temperatures reduced the availability of Arctic Cod, the guillemots’ preferred prey.
Should this year’s nearshore ice break up slowly over the next month, Arctic Cod could remain in the guillemots’ foraging range and allow increased chick growth and fledging success. The latter is urgently needed for the colony to reduce its current population decline. First eggs will be hatching in about two weeks and our daily weighing of nestlings and prey observations should demonstrate how much this year’s persistent sea ice has affected the guillemots’ nearshore environment.
This field report is part of an ongoing series titled Arctic Change centered around George Divoky’s 44th field season studying Black Guillemots, sea ice, and climate change on a remote Arctic island off the coast of Alaska. To donate and support Divoky’s work on Cooper Island, visit the Friends of Cooper Island website.
I can’t help but think about perspective and what it might be like to have the ocean below you as your world-view – like an astronaut floating in lower Earth orbit looking down on this ever-changing terrain. It might be all right if one weren’t at the mercy of such powerful forces like wind, ocean storms, and the sort of human carelessness that chokes our ocean ecosystems with plastic.
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