Deep Sea Research 2009

Day 15 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

There were two otter trawls today. The first one was to 750 m and the other one was to 500 m. Some snail fish were caught, another hatchet fish, and shrimp.

Hagfish were caught in the first trawl. Those will be shipped to Hawaii. Hopefully they will survive the trip.

Jason was sad. He was hoping to get a certain type of rat tail in the trawl, but he didn’t get any.

He was able to do some cross-sectioning though. Jason has to cross section the fish to see how much red muscle and gel a fish has.

While we were waiting for the trawl, a sea lion was swimming.

This was the last respirometer recovery, and it had a fish inside one chamber.

A pod of dolphins were cruising along side the ship. I tried really hard to get video of them jumping out of the water. Hopefully you’ll be able to see some of them in the video.

The weather changed quickly. Luckily we headed back in today.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 14 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-11T22:13:00.000-07:00

The typhoon storm is supposed to hit us late tomorrow night. So, we’ll be heading back into port tomorrow evening. Hopefully it won’t get too bad out here.

This morning the 5:30 am trawl came up with a huge abyssicola skate. Look how big she is!! Yes, it is a female. The third picture is the shell gland. This is where the skate makes the egg case for the baby.

The camera was recovered from 1000 m. There were a lot of hagfish in the photos. I wanted to show you a picture of a hag fish actually inside the fish, but the third photo was the best I could find. Hagfish can’t get past the thick skin of animals because they have no jaw. They do have dental plates, but they are inside their body. Often times, hagfish work their way into dead animals through eye sockets, gill slits, and mouths. (Don't forget that you can enlarge the photos by clicking on it.)

Here are some more photos of a hagfish. You will see their eyespots, their nostril and mouth, and in the last photo, their eggs.

The second trawl today was to 500 m. A different skate was caught today. A file-tail catshark was also caught. You will see it in the video below.

Tomorrow morning, there will be another trawl. We will recover the camera and respirometer, and then it will probably be time to head back into port before the storm hits. I'm looking forward to going back to school. I miss you guys.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 13 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-10T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today was bird day for some reason. I felt like we were in the Snow White fairy tale with all the birds flying everywhere.

The 1:30 am trawl came up around 7:30. Again, it had a couple of skates and many fish. Look at the spines on the skate.

The respirometer was recovered today. Unfortunately, there weren’t any fish in the chambers. It was deployed about an hour later and will be recovered tomorrow. There are only a few days left of this research cruise. Hopefully there will be fish in the chambers for the next deployments.

The camera was recovered today. Do you remember what type of bait was used this time? Rat tail fish was baited to the anchor to test whether or not rat tail fish would come around. Dr. Drazen believes that rat tail fish will not come in an area that a dead rat tail is occupying. The 3000 m camera pictures did not show any rat tail fish. It mostly had crabs, a skate, and other fish such as Pachycara.

The camera was deployed later to 1000 m with the normal bait, milk fish. Tomorrow it will be recovered. I’m looking forward to watch will be pictured at 1000 m.

The night otter trawl started at 5:00 and was back up around 11:00. It was another muddy mess.

It was the day of interesting non-marine life creatures on board the ship. One little bird had a butterfly in its mouth, and we even had a dragonfly catching a ride.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Day 12 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

Today was another calm day on the water. Some say it is the calm before the storm. A storm is supposedly going to be here around Monday.

The 2000 m trawl came up around 7:30 this morning. It caught many fish again as well as a skate, more crabs, a slick head fish, baby snail fish and even an octopus.

The respirometer and camera were both deployed today. Last night, Dr. Drazen and John brainstormed on what they could do differently to get fish into the respirometer chambers. This is our step 8 of the scientific method. If you could do your experiment again, what would you do differently?

They decided to change the location of two of the hook holders and to add bait around two of the respirometer’s legs. The first photo has the original location of the hook holder, and the second photo is where it was moved. The added fish bait was wrapped in screen and tied to the legs.

Normally milk fish was used for the camera bait. This camera deployment will have rat tail fish as the bait. On a different expedition, Dr. Drazen had set out a trap with rait tail as the bait and noticed that there weren’t any rat tail fish that came near the trap. He thinks rat tails won’t come around if they sense one of their one is dead. Dr. Drazen is trying it again to see if this might be true.

The second 2000 m trawl today brought up more interesting creatures from the deep. I was fascinated to see such an enormous skate case. Look at the size difference between the regular skate eggs cases that I have seen compared to the large skate egg case. Wow!!

More skates, octopus, and king crabs were caught in this second trawl of the day. A little lantern fish was also caught. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you will be able to see its photophores. Do you remember what photophores are? Dr. Drazen discussed it during his presentation. Photophores are little organs that light up.

John continues to conduct his lab respirometer experiments on the hag fish. The hag fish had to be taken out of the lab respirometer and it produced a lot of slime. Watch the video to hear why the slime was produced.

The longline was deployed during the day. It was recovered later in the night with an even larger giant cusk eel attached to a hook.

The third trawl of the day began around 9:30 tonight and will be back on board around 1 am.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 11 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

The otter trawl net was awesome!! Richie really did an amazing job with fixing it. Thanks so much Richie!! It was brought up this morning around 7:30.

Do you remember what this crab is called? It’s a squat lobster. This one is smaller than the other crab from yesterday. In the second photo, the fish was dissected. It still had something in its stomach. Can you see what it is? It’s a squat lobster!!

We always make sure to measure all the fish that has been caught. If a fish needs to be preserved, then formalin is mixed together. Formalin is a solution used to preserve the fish, keep it in tact.

Formalin needed to be made today for one particular fish. It is a type of Pachycara, but it wasn’t able to be located in any books. Dr. Drazen and John believe that this might be a new species. Dr. Drazen is e-mailing another scientist who specializes in Pachycara.

During the trawls, someone needs to keep the data. The data collector records the current depth, how much wire is out of the winch, the latitude, the longitude, and the speed of the ship every 20-30 minutes. Jack is the data collector for one of today’s trawls. He did such a wonderful job. :)

Today, the crew had a fire drill. This is like when we have fire drills in school. It allows them to practice the correct fire drill procedures.

The past few days have been a little bumpy out here at sea, but today, wow it was crazy calm. I couldn’t believe how smooth it was. The ocean looked like silk.

The second trawl of the day was also very successful and very muddy. We caught a lot of fish as well as a sea urchin and unfortunately marine debris.

The fish tub needed to be cleaned because it was way too muddy. Katie got just a little muddy.

We don’t know what this is. Pictures were taken and will be sent to other scientists to see if they know what it could be. It was really slimy!!

There will be another early morning, 1:30 am, trawl and then the respirometer, camera, and longline will all be deployed tomorrow.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 10 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

It was an early morning that started at 5:00 with the beam trawl. You always get to see the photos of the sunrise, so I thought this time I would take video for you to watch it instead.

Everyone was happy that this trawl brought up many fish.

This is called a squat lobster, but it’s not even a lobster. It’s a type of crab. I thought it was extremely interesting since its body is white, but it has orange eyes. If you look at the second picture, you can see the orange in between its legs. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

Today was a really good day for Dr. Drazen. It started off with a fantastic trawl, and then he was lucky enough to find a white shark tooth amongst the trawl catch. (Yes, I was and still am very jealous. He is keeping the tooth close to him at all times. If we find another tooth, I already called it mine!!) :)

Here is another type of sea cucumber. Doesn’t it look like a mini-football?

The camera was retrieved this afternoon, and it has many awesome photos on it. Look at all these fish.

This one is very interesting. It has a sea anemone just hanging out.

Success!! The respirometer was recovered today with a fish inside. This fish is called a Pachycara.

The plan was to deploy the respirometer again. While getting it ready, Dr. Drazen took a closer look at the method of trying to catch the fish. The pictures from the camera showed huge rat tail and other fish. The fish seemed to enjoy the fish bait, so it was decided that maybe fish bait should also be put on the front of the respirometer chamber doors.

The longline was deployed around 12:30 this afternoon. Recovery was a little difficult since it was so dark. It was brought back on board around 9:00 pm. There were three rat tails, a flat nose coddling, and giant cusk eel. Look at the size of this Giant Cusk Eel!!! This was an immature female, meaning that it has not yet reached full length. Look at the size of its heart!!

At midnight, the otter trawl will be deployed. Richie spent majority of today fixing the rest of the net. I can’t wait to see what we catch!!!

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 9 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-06T23:45:00.000-07:00

Getting up early really does have its benefits when you get to see a beautiful sunrise.

This morning the camera was deployed to 3000 m. It will be recovered tomorrow morning. Next, the respirometer was recovered. Unfortunately there weren’t any fish in the chambers. It was deployed about an hour later to 3000 m again.

Here’s a video of John grappling the respirometer. I was even allowed to control the A-Frame. :)

As I said in yesterday’s blog, the otter trawl net was almost completely destroyed in last night’s trawl. Today, Richie started sewing the net back together.

Hopefully we will be able to use the otter trawl tomorrow or on Thursday. For right now, the beam trawl will be used. Instead of having doors like the otter trawl, the beam trawl has a beam.

This trawl took 6 hours to go down 3000 m and back up. We caught many, many interesting sea creatures.

Here are some pictures of beautiful sea stars, flat and round sea cucumbers, a sea urchin with Dr. Drazen pointing to its mouth, a tube-like worm, and some snail like creatures.

As always, everyone worked hard getting all the fish dissected and the tissue samples taken.

John was nice enough to put a sea spider in a jar for me to take back to school for all of you. Thanks John!! :)

Tomorrow morning the beam trawl begins at 5:00. I better get to bed so I can wake up nice and early.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 8 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-05T22:49:00.000-07:00

It was another beautiful morning.

Last night, the otter trawl net got damaged during the 2000 m trawl. Jack worked on the net during the day to have it ready for the 3000m trawl for tonight.

The respirometer was recovered this morning. Do you remember how the respirometer is brought in closer to the ship? In this video, John explains how to grapple. Tomorrow I will put up a video of John actually grappling the respirometer.

The respirometer was released about an hour later. Unfortunately there weren’t any fish in any of the chambers. Before the respirometer could be deployed again, John had to work on the battery and solder the wires together. The respirometer was deployed to 3000 m. Hopefully we will have fish in the chambers tomorrow.

The camera was also recovered today. It was deployed to 2000 m yesterday. The pictures were awesome!! Here are some of them. Don't forget that you can always enlarge the photo by clicking on it.

In this photo you will see a king crab (it’s huge!!), rat tail (white), morid fish, and some brittle stars.

I love this one. It has an octopus coming in to check out the bait. Doesn’t it look so cool?? There are also a couple of rat tails and a couple of fighting crabs.

I really liked this one too because it shows the octopus moving away from the bait. I was so excited to see these pictures.

This photo is really cool, too. It has the fighting crabs again, but also a giant rat tail (white), a long sea cucumber, and a sea star that is climbing on the bait.

These next two photos are pretty amazing with the skate swimming through.

The otter trawl was to 3000 m. It took about 3 hours and 20 min. to reach the bottom. Then it was trawling on the bottom of the sea floor for about an hour. It took about a little more than 2 hours for the trawl to resurface. Unfortunately, more than half of the net broke off. There were some fish that were caught on the net that didn’t break off.

Here is the vampire squid that was caught. Can you see the beak? Look at that eye! You can also see its little fins.

This is a huge sea spider.

Tonight’s moon was absolutely amazing. I tried to get a good shot of it, but none of them came out. Just take my word for it, beautiful! Tomorrow we will be deploying the camera to 3000 m, recovering the respirometer & deploying it to another 3000 m, and doing a beam trawl to 3000 m.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 7 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-04T23:59:00.000-07:00

This morning started at 6:30. First the camera needed to be recovered.

It was such a beautiful morning. Andrew thought so too, and that's why he was dancing!! :)

The ride was extremely rough heading off shore to retrieve the respirometer. It took about a couple of hours to get to the location of the respirometer. The acoustic signal was released, and the respirometer surface around 45 minutes later. Here is a video showing the respirometer surfacing in the rough waters.

We are now 2 for 2 with the respirometer. This time there was a rat tail in the 3rd chamber. After cleaning the chambers, downloading the data from the chambers, and attaching the weights, the respirometer was ready for another deployment. It was deployed to 2000 m. I can’t wait to see what we get tomorrow when the respirometer is recovered in the morning.

Our next focus was on deploying the camera to 2000 m. It is attached to a frame with floats, a strobe light, and bait on an anchor with a scale bar. The floats are used to make the frame float to the surface. The camera needs a strobe light to take the picture. It's just like using the flash on your camera when you take a picture in a dark area. The same concept applies to why the strobe light is needed for the camera to take a picture.

Obviously the bait is needed to attract fish and other deep-sea creatures toward the camera. The anchor is used to weigh down the frame. The frame floats above the anchor that has gone down to the seafloor. This first camera deployment is 100 meters. The scale bar, which is also attached to the anchor, is needed to take measurements of the fish and other sea creatures that get their picture taken. The scale bar is like a ruler you use at school, but this scale bar is sectioned off by 2 1/2 inches while your ruler is sectioned off by 1 inch.

The camera and respirometer will both be recovered tomorrow morning. Today was our deepest trawl, 2000 m. There was a problem with the winch, but this ship crew is the best!! They problem-solved together and fixed it. What great teamwork!!! :)

This trawl took over 6 hours. It took almost 3 hours for the trawl to get to the bottom of the sea floor, then trawled for an hour, and it was finally brought back to the surface. The catch was little, but we were able to get a lot of measurements and tissue samples for the research project. You will see photos of a rat tail, a cool looking squid, shrimp, and a sea spider.

Everyone worked really hard today. :)

Katie brought me a present while I was blogging . . .

I see you . . .

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 6 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

The weather forecast was to be pretty bad off shore, so we decided to stay closer in shore today. The first 100 m camera deployment did not have any pictures. Today we deployed the camera again 100 m in hopes to get pictures this time.

We were unable to recover the respirometer today since the weather was supposed to be bad. Hopefully we will be able to retrieve it tomorrow.

Today, there were three otter trawls, two at 100 m and one at 500m. The two trawls at 100 m had more sea nettle jellyfish, a rat fish, a crab, and skates.

Again, we measure what was caught and take samples from some of them.

The last trawl of the day was the most successful for Nicole and her research project. She has needed shark samples from various species, but has only had dogfish shark and cat shark caught in the trawls. This trawl was different. Two huge sleeper sharks were caught. Nicole was very pleased. Not only were there sharks, but also 6 more skates for her to record for her research project.

Tissue and blood samples were taken from the sharks. Look how enormous the stomach is on this shark! Wow!

This is the heart of one of the sleeper shark.

After all the excitement from catching the sharks, it was time to do more measuring and taking tissue samples from the other fish caught.

The rat fish is a very interesting looking fish. It even has its own fish paparazzi. Look at those teeth on that fish!

Tomorrow’s weather is supposed to be pretty rough as well. We need to recover the camera in the morning, and then head off shore to retrieve the respirometer. We are getting ready for a crazy roller coaster ride tomorrow.

:)

While I was in the wheelhouse taking notes for the trawl, I saw a sea lion following us.

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 5 R/V Point Sur

2009-10-02T23:55:00.000-07:00

The camera was recovered early this morning. We’re hoping to have many pictures from 1000 m. This video will show you how the camera is recovered by grappling, throwing out a rope with a hook, and by bringing it up on deck with the A-Frame. I’m sorry that the camera recovery might be hard to see since the sun was already shinning brightly this morning.

After recovering the camera, it was time for the respirometer recovery. Our fingers were all crossed that we would have a fish in at least one of the chambers. The videos are of the respirometer being recovered just like the camera. You have to grapple the respirometer. The other video is of what was caught in the chambers.

John’s getting the rope ready to throw over to bring in the respirometer. (Check out his t-shirt. He’s all about supporting our school's robotics program.) :)

The respirometer was cleaned, and was ready for the next deployment after about 45 minutes. This time instead of 1000 m, it was released in 1200 m. Dr. Drazen is hoping to get out of the hag fish range, so other fish can be caught.

The other hagfish that were caught yesterday were still in the refrigerator. Today one was put into the lab respirometer. So far, the lab respirometer seems to be working extremely well.

The camera will be deployed again tomorrow. We are expecting a little rough weather tomorrow. Later, we will move into shallower water to stay away from the high swells. Today, there were two more otter trawls. This time they were at the depth of 750 m. Both trawls were successful.

The first trawl had a lot of crabs. The small pink fish are called snail fish. I think I posted some pictures of some snail fish the other day on the blog. I found out today that these cute little snail fish actually attach their eggs to the crabs that you will see below. The eggs are attached near the crabs’ gills. This allows water to run over the eggs. It is not known for how long the eggs are there, but after some time, the eggs hatch and the fish swim off.

Another interesting find in this first trawl was a baby cat shark. Now I couldn’t show you a picture of a cat shark without showing you a picture of the dogfish (dog shark) that was caught a couple of days ago. The first photo is of the cat shark.

Do you remember when Dr. Drazen came into our class and brought some of his deep-sea fish creatures? Well, he had shown you all a small hatchet fish. Look at this picture and see if you can tell which one is the hatchet fish. (Hint: It’s not the one at the top – that’s a viper fish, Dr. Drazen showed you one of those too, and it’s also not the one at the bottom.) :)

It was another breath-taking night with the sun setting and the almost full moon in the sky. Tonight we are staying in Monterey Bay closer to Santa Cruz due to the weather forecast for tomorrow. We are in shallower water to stay away from the higher swells. We'll take this opportunity to do some more shallow trawls and camera deployment.

While in the shallower waters tonight, we were surrounded by about 20-30 sea lions just cruising around. It was amazing!!

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 4 R/V Point Sur Part 2

2009-10-01T23:50:00.000-07:00

Nicole has to dissect the skate to take tissue samples. In the video, you will see the liver, white muscle, heart, and brain. I do not mention it in the video, but next to the brain is the red muscle of the skate. Fish use their white and red muscles for swimming.

It always amazes me when I see the moon and the sun in the sky at the same time. One photo was from the left side of the ship and the other one was from the right side. It was just beautiful.

The second trawl to 1000 m was just as successful as the first trawl today. We saw many more skates, rat tails, and little crabs. Some hagfish were caught as well. They are put in water, and then they stay in the refrigerator for 24 hours. After 24 hours, John will be able to test out his lab respirometer. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works.

John is always too nice. In this video, he 'tosses" (really throws) a hagfish at me and it lands in the bucket.

Many fish come up from the net pretty beaten up. Some of their scales may fall off as well as their eyes. Normally their eyes fall off due to their swim bladder expanding which causes the eyes to bulge out.

While measuring the fish, we found one that had two other fish inside its mouth. We think the fish fell into the mouth. It was pretty cool.

Today was a fun-filled day with much excitement from the success of the camera and trawls. Again we were able to see some humpback whales, and we saw some dall porpoises. I tried to take video of the porpoises, but it was too difficult. The porpoises don’t jump out of the water like dolphins. I will show you the shaky video, that I did take, when I get back to school.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 4 R/V Point Sur Part 1

2009-10-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

We had amazing weather today! Wow! It was gorgeous throughout the entire day!! After breakfast, we recovered the camera. This camera was deployed to 200 m. We are hoping it took many photos.

After recovering the camera, it was time for the first respirometer deployment of this cruise. Dr. Drazen went over how the respirometer works to Carrie and Jack. Jason, Dr. Yancey, and Katie checked the floats to make sure they were working properly. Then they needed to check the acoustic signal release for the respirometer.

Do you remember Dr. Drazen’s PowerPoint presentation on how the respirometer is deployed and recovered? First the ship deploys the respirometer. It sinks to the bottom of the seafloor due to the five 50 lbs. weights anchored to the bottom. After about 24 hours, the ship returns to the same location the respirometer was deployed and sends out an acoustic signal to release the weights. Once the weights are released, then the respirometer will begin to resurface.

Finally the bait can be put on the hooks, and the brain can be tested for the respirometer. The brain will receive all the data from the metabolic rate of each fish captured in the chambers.

This video shows the deployment of the respirometer.

Rich & Jack are working really hard, and so is Andrew. :)

Today was a very successful day for the camera and both 1000 m otter trawls. The camera took many pictures. The following pictures are actual shots from the camera while it was at 200 m. These pictures are copyrighted which means that they belong to Dr. Drazen. Please remember if you ever use any pictures from the web or any other resources, you always give credit to the source. In these photos you will see the milk fish being used as bait. There will be many amphiods(the tiny red things all over the bait), some crabs, a hag fish, and some really cool comb jellies. Don't forget that you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The first otter trawl to 1000 m was extremely successful as you will see by watching the video. In the video you will see the green net floating at the surface because all the fish’s swim bladders have expanded pushing their stomachs out of their mouth. This causes them to float.

You will see pictures of the idiot fish, (3rd photo), a snail fish (4th photo), rat tail (5th photo), a skate, and sea pigs (7th photo). Nicole and Dr. Drazen use the books to help them identify the type of skate.

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Virtual Tour - R/V Point Sur

2009-10-01T22:35:00.000-07:00

Virtual Tour Part 1 - The ship & galley

Virtual Tour Part 2 - The Bridge & bow

Virtual Tour Part 3 - The Wheelhouse & muster location

Virtual Tour Part 4 - Staterooms

Virtual Tour Part 5 - The engine room

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Meet the Washington Crew

2009-10-01T16:51:00.000-07:00

Dr. Paul H. Yancey has been a Professor at Whitman College, in Walla Walla, Washington since 1981. He earned his B.S. in Biology from the California Institute of Technology. His research was on DNA-RNA hybridization. Dr. Yancey received his Ph.D. in Marine biology, specializing in marine animal physiology and biochemistry from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, U.C. San Diego. He worked mainly on osmoregulatory biochemistry of sharks. His research focuses on water stress and osmoregulation, and has since expanded to include medical, kidney osmoregulation and salmon as well as marine organisms in the deep sea.

Dr. Yancey did postdoctoral work on salmon, sharks and other fishes at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the Marine Laboratory in Plymouth, England, and University of Olso, Norway.

It was a pleasure meeting and working with Dr. Yancey during the October cruise. I learned so much from him. Thank you, Dr. Yancey for taking the time to speak with me about your shark research. It was fascinating.

To learn more about Dr. Yancey’s research and expeditions, please visit his website.

http://people.whitman.edu/~yancey/

Day 3 R/V Point Sur

2009-09-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

It was a beautiful morning. Our goal was to first recover the camera. Dr. Drazen and John sent down the acoustic signal to release the weights. It only took a few minutes for it to resurface since it was only at 100 m.

Unfortunately, the camera did not take any pictures. There was a problem with it. The camera has been fixed and hopefully it will work during the next deployment to 200 m. It will be recovered tomorrow morning.

The first otter trawl was released at 11:00 to 200 m. Some fish were caught, but not enough. The second otter trawl also went to 200 m, and again, it was not as successful as we had hoped.

In the first photo, you will see a sea cucumber. The second photo has little polychaete worms. You will also sea small sea star. When we identify the fish, many times we need to use books to help us determine the exact type of fish. The last photo is of a heart urchin sand dollar. I’ll be bringing the sand dollar back to school with me.

During the third and fourth trawl, more wire was sent out and we also went at a slower speed during the trawl. Our trawl catch was still small, but we did get some fish Dr. Drazen needed tissue samples from. In these photos, you will see a beautiful sea star, skate egg cases, spot prawn shrimp, California octopus, box crab, and another crab.

The longline was deployed today with the hopes of baiting sharks and rays. The short video shows how the longline is released.

The sunset was beautiful tonight. The weather was a little chilly today with some high swells. Hopefully it will be better tomorrow. We got to see many Humpback Whales breaching and tail fluke dives throughout the day. Even a few dolphins were seen cruising in the water.

Around 8:30, the longline was recovered. It did catch a couple of sun stars, but no sharks or rays yet. We’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for tomorrow’s longline deployment.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 2 R/V Point Sur Part 2

2009-09-29T23:58:00.000-07:00

This is an electric ray. They have electric organs on their wings that are similar to an electric eel. The ray can send out charges that will sting its prey.

Nicole needs tissue samples from rays and sharks for her Master’s research project. She is studying metabolism and trophic ecology (food web) in sharks, skates, and rays.

John is always hard at work . . .

All the fish from the trawls need to be measured and have the data recorded. Dr. Drazen needs this information to be able to calculate an estimate of the diverse fish population at the different depths. Katie is measuring a sanddab flat fish while Jason records the data.

Some fish from the trawls are dissected and have tissue samples taken from them. Dr. Drazen needs white muscle, red muscle, liver, heart, and brain samples from the fish. The tissue samples will be kept frozen in liquid nitrogen and taken back to Hawaii for testing. Certain tissue samples will help Dr. Drazen to get more information on the fish’s metabolic rate, locomotion and enzyme levels.

Keeping the samples in liquid nitrogen will allow them to be more preserved. Liquid nitrogen is extremely cold. Its temperature is about −196 °C (−321 °F).

Besides the camera, respirometer, and trawls, there will be a longline deployment. Nicole’s longline has 20 baited hooks with squids. She hopes to catch sharks and rays for her research. The longline will be deployed for 5-6 hours. Just like the last cruise, there will be weights at the bottom of the longline with a magnesium dissolving clasp. The magnesium will dissolve within 5-6 hours. After it dissolves, the weights will be released and the longline will begin to resurface.

Once the longline resurfaces, the beacon on the mast will send out a frequency that will be captured by the ship. This will allow us to locate the position of the longline. Only rat tail fish were caught during the last cruise. We are hoping sharks and rays will be caught this time.

While working on the longline, John got drenched by a wave coming over board.

The second trawl did not have as much fish as the first trawl, but we were able to still get some tissue samples from them. This trawl was only down for 12 minutes instead of the original 15 minutes of the first trawl.

Jack is doing his research on DNA of fish. He needs fin samples to gather the DNA information.

The longline surfaced 6 hours after being deployed. Unfortunately there weren’t any sharks or rays on the hooks, but there was a large rock fish.

Today was an amazing day. Not only did we get a lot of work accomplished, but we also had dolphins swimming along side the ship. A couple of sea lions also join the fun diving in and out of the water.

:)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 2 R/V Point Sur Part 1

2009-09-29T23:48:00.000-07:00

Everyone arrived at the Point Sur at 7:30 this morning. It was a little warmer this morning, around 60 degrees. The Hawaii crew includes Dr. Drazen the Chief Scientist, John the Technician/Research Assistant, Nicole and Jason who are both graduate students of oceanography and research assistants. The California crew is represented by Katie who is a graduate student at MLML (Moss Landing Marine Lab). The Washington crew includes Dr. Yancey, professor at Whitman College, and one of his undergraduate students, Carrie. The International crew includes Jackie Lighten from London who is a graduate student at Dalhousie University in Canada.

The plan was to set sail at 8:30 after first moving our luggage and personal things on board, having a safety meeting, and a brief meeting with the Captain. The safety meeting was held at the muster location. It’s just like how we have a meeting location if there is a fire at our school; this location is where everyone meets in case of an emergency. We all had to wear our life jackets. Paul, the 2nd Mate, went over all the safety procedures with us.

The agenda for the day was to deploy the camera to 100 m and have two otter trawls at 100 m. First we had to get the camera ready for deployment. Do you remember how many pictures the camera takes and how often? The camera takes a picture every 2 minutes. It can take a total of 1,200 pictures.

Last cruise, the otter trawl doors were extremely light in weight. When bringing the trawl back to the surface, the doors would not close. This would allow fish to come out of the net. During this trawl, the doors will have an added weight bar to weigh them down. The doors will sink faster, and will hopefully close when it resurfaces.

A test trawl was done to see if the added weight on the doors would help them to close. It was successful. The doors definitely closed.

During the test trawl, we got many Sea Nettle Jellyfish in the net. They were so huge!! Can you see the red tentacles?

In this video, Dr. Drazen is helping the jellyfish get off the deck.

Now it was time to do the real 100 m trawl. This trawl had many fish, but also many, many Sea Nettles. I don’t remember having these jellyfish last cruise. I wonder why there have been so many of them this cruise.

Dr. Yancey found an article online that discusses a suggestion to the increase of jellyfish in the Monterey Bay area. (You can copy and paste this link into a new internet window.)

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local-beat/Jellyfish-Gum-Up-Monterey-Aquariums-Waterworks-jw-53152702.html

Do you remember when Dr. Drazen came and spoke to our class? He talked to you about pressure of the deep-sea. When the deep-sea fish are brought to the surface, their swim bladders expand because of the pressure difference. This causes the fish’s stomach to come out of its mouth.

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 1 R/V Point Sur (2nd Trip)

2009-09-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

This morning started nice and early with the temperature only at 57 degrees. It was too cold outside for me! We arrived at the Point Sur at 8:00 am. The first goal of the day was to crane all the equipment and tools from the dock to the ship.

First, straps have to be put underneath the object that needs to be craned over. Then the straps are put on the hooks of the crane. This box weighed about 2,700 lbs.!!

Not only was the crane used to carry over the equipment for the research experiment, but the garbage bin also had to be craned over. The ship needs to have a large garbage bin. Being out to sea for 2 & 1/2 weeks is a long time and the trash will build up quickly.

The second goal was to check all the equipment to make sure they are working properly. Nicole and Jason worked on the chambers as John tested the brain of the respirometer. (Sorry that some of the pictures are hard to see. It was a foggy, dark, gloomy morning.)

We also had to make sure everything was tied down in the lab. This will prevent things from moving, falling over, and possibly hurting someone. Now, you remember when Dr. Drazen came to our class and spoke about the respirometer? The respirometer is a device that measures the metabolic rate of the fish. It lures the fish into the one of the four chambers with bait attached to the outside of the door. Once the fish bites on the bait, the fish trips the trigger and it is pulled into the chamber. This causes the front door to shut, locking the fish into the chamber.

When deep-sea fish are brought up to the surface are they alive or dead? Remember all the pictures you saw from the previous research cruise? All of those fish were brought up dead, except for an interesting one, the hagfish. Hagfish are agnathans, jawless fish. They also do not have true eyes; they can't see images. Hagfish have eye spots that can detect light. Currently, data shows that shallow dwelling hagfish have higher metabolic rate than deep-sea hagfish. Dr. Drazen has decided to run experiments to see if this also true of hagfish off of Monterey. John created a "lab" respirometer that will allow the hagfish stay inside the small lab respirometer and measure the metabolic rate of the hagfish.

This lab respirometer (a very miniature version of the true respirometer) will be able to maintain the same water temperature as the depth the hagfish were caught. This will allow the hagfish to be tested in its natural water temperature.

This is the water bath.

Of course we saw many sea lions again. Tomorrow morning we meet at the Point Sur at 7:30 and then set sail at 8:30.

:)

(Reminder: You can always enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 14 & 15 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-23T20:37:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately the weather continued to get worse and we had to return early. When we arrived back on land, first we had to unload the entire ship and then weigh all the fish. Thank you to the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory for allowing us to use your facility to weigh the fish.

I have never been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium before this trip. I was so excited to be able to go and see so many wonderful exhibits. On the way to the aquarium, we saw Harbor Seals.

The sea otters were so cute!!

All the fish were beautiful to watch.

Wow! The jellyfish were amazing!

The penguins were so adorable! =)

I enjoyed my time during the cruise and I'm looking forward to the second part of the adventure in October.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 13 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-13T13:38:00.001-07:00

Day 12 runs right into Day 13 . . .

The first trawl was released around 1:00 am to 2000 meters. While on trawl duty, I saw a huge sea lion swimming along side our ship. It was so amazing! I never knew they came out this far. When we were bringing the trawl back on board, I saw the sea lion again swimming behind the boat. It was so awesome!! What a way to start the morning. I wish I was able to take a picture of it.

The second trawl was released around 7:00 am and came up around noon.

Nicole deployed her long-line one more time in hopes to catch a shark and/or skate. Unfortunately the long-line did not have any sharks or skates. It only had rat tail fish. Hopefully during the second part of this research cruise in October, she will deploy her long-line and catch the sharks & skates.

The seas were extremely rough today, so we had to anchor in the bay for safety.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 12 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-12T12:25:00.003-07:00

Day 11 runs right into Day 12. . .

Our first 3000 meter trawl was sent out at 1:00 am. It was brought back up at 5:30 am.

The second 3000 meter trawl was released at 7:00 am, and was brought back up around 11:00 am.

The camera and respirometer were both recovered today. The respirometer was successful again! All four chamber doors were closed, and there was one fish in a chamber.

It was a beautiful day and night!

Mariah is so excited to hear that her trawl shift will be 3am-9am!! There will be two late trawls both at 2000 meters.

It was a long day with late night trawls. Some of us took little naps along the way.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 11 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-12T12:24:00.001-07:00

Yesterday was a beautiful morning, but the weather was rough the night before. We had to move closer to shore because of the bad weather. This delayed our camera and respirometer recoveries, but we were able to do an otter trawl at 350 meters.

Here is a type of a medusa jellyfish.

These look similar to skate egg cases, but they are actually a catshark egg case. If you look closely at the second picture, you will be able to see the yolk sac inside attached to the catshark embryo. Again, this is similar to the skate egg casings that you saw in the earlier blogs. The catshark embryo will get its nutrition through the yolk sac. As soon as the catshark gets all the nutrients from the yolk sac and empties it, the catshark will leave the egg case.

Here is a skate egg case. Do you see the difference in the size and shape between the skate egg case and the catshark egg case? The skate egg case has little horns that come out at the ends and the catshark egg case does not. The catshark egg case is sometimes called the mermaid's purse.

John dissected a hagfish. Can you see the small yellow eggs? The hagfish had over 15 eggs inside.

Here is another type of crab that was caught in this 350 meter trawl.

After the weather calmed down a little, we headed to the camera station to recover it. This camera was deployed to 2000 meters. It was recovered safely, and the camera took many amazing pictures of the deep-sea creatures at 2000 meters.

In this picture there are rat tails, a flat nose codling fish, and crabs.

In the bottom left corner, you will see a long white sea cucumber. The massive fish int he middle is another type of rat tail.

Look at all these crabs!!!! Doesn't it look like a rugby match?? =)

The respirometer was also safely recovered. It was a very successful deployment. All four chamber doors were closed upon recovery and there was rat tail in one of the chambers!!!! =) They have downloaded the data from the oxygen sensor and will analyze it.

Since we had lost a lot of time from the bad weather, our respirometer pit crew had to work fast to get it ready for another deployment that night. Everyone worked well together, and it was deployed to the new depth of 3000 meters. We have such a great team!! =)

After deploying the respirometer 2000 meters, it was time to deploy the camera to 3000 meters. The respirometer and camera will be retrieved tomorrow.

Again, because of the bad weather our trawl was pushed back. Instead of trawling in the early evening, we would now be trawling at 1:00 am. Since I'm such a night owl, I volunteered to stay up to watch the trawl until 6:00 am. Jason also stayed up to watch and monitor the computer. It's been a very long time since I've stayed up for 24 hours straight. Boy was I exhausted after the trawl came up in the morning!!

Many of us were tired yesterday.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Meet the Ship Crew

2009-04-11T06:21:00.001-07:00

Captain Jeff

Paul (Chief Mate)

Barrett (1st Engineer)

Yury (2nd Engineer)

Jack

Andrew (Marine Technician)

Tara (The cook)

** Hopefully in October I will get photos of the rest of the crew. The ship crew's mini-bios will be coming soon!! =)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Meet the California Crew

2009-04-10T21:28:00.001-07:00

Donna Kline

Donna is in the Master’s Program at California State University of Monterey Bay. She will be receiving her second Master’s, but this time in the area of Coastal and Watershed, Science and Policy. Her first Master's was from MLML in Marine Science. Donna completed her undergraduate degree from University of Missouri in Biology. After receiving her Bachelor’s Degree, Donna became an Officer in the Navy. While stationed in San Diego, she became a Navy diver with the marine mammal unit. She trained sea lions to recover objects from depths up to 800 ft.

Her goal on this cruise is to document the information gained from the trawls and respirometer deployments. Her role is to collect the data to answer the policy makers’ questions. She is like the middle person in between the policy makers and the scientists. She is also currently working at the Institute of Applied Marine Ecology.

For more information on the Institute of Applied Marine Ecology, please visit http://sep.csumb.edu/iame/.

Mariah Boyle

Mariah is currently finishing her Master’s Program at MLML in Science of Marine Science. She received her undergraduate degree from Florida Institute of Technology in Marine Biology. Mariah’s passion is sharks!! Her favorite shark is the Tiger Shark, but her second is the Great White!!! =)

She also works at the Pacific Shark Research Center. Her study is on the Roughtail Skate. This skate is found in deep waters, 500-2500 meters. There is not much known information about this particular skate. Mariah is studying the diet of this skate. She dissects the stomach. Then she identifies the stomach contents and weighs the material. Tissue is also taken to run chemical analysis to find out where they feed on the food web.

For more information on the Pacific Shark Research Center, please visit
http://psrc.mlml.calstate.edu/.

Shaara Ainsley

Shaara is currently finishing her Master’s Program at Moss Landing Marine Lab (MLML) in Science of Marine Science. She received her undergraduate degree from University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) in marine biology and ecology. Shaara is also working at the Pacific Shark Research Center.

Shaara’s thesis paper in on the study of skates. She always had a passion for sharks, skates, and rays since was she was young. Shaara’s favorite shark is the Scalloped Hammerhead shark. Her study is on the skate’s age & growth and reproduction. It’s very difficult to identify the age of sharks, skates, and rays unlike other fish. Fish have an otolith bone in their head that is similar to a human’s inner ear. As the fish grows, the otolith gets more layers. It’s like how you can identify the age of a tree by counting the rings on the trunk.

Unfortunately, sharks, skates, and rays do not have the otolith bone like other fish. They have no bones at all, only cartilage. This makes it even more challenging to identify their age. One way to identify their age is by sectioning off their vertebrae. The vertebra is cut in half and the bands are count to identify the age.

Shaara is only studying one particular skate species, the Bering Skate. She is comparing the Bering Skate that live in the Bering Sea to the Bering Skate that live in the Gulf of Alaska.

For more information on the Pacific Shark Research Center, please visit http://psrc.mlml.calstate.edu/.

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Meet the Hawaii Crew

2009-04-10T21:17:00.001-07:00

Dr. Jeff Drazen

Dr. Jeff Drazen is the Chief Scientist of this research cruise. He has been a Professor of Oceanography at University of Hawaii at Manoa for about 4 years. Dr. Drazen is originally from Olympia, Washington. He grew up loving to fish and playing in the tide pools.

He received his undergraduate degree from University of San Diego in Biology and Marine Science. He then continued his education at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Feeding Ecology of Rat Tail for his PhD.

As an undergraduate, he fell in love with the deep sea. Some of his professors brought in samples of creatures that live on or around hydrothermal vents. These vents can expel extremely hot water and also black smoke. Many interesting creatures live on or around these vents. The professor brought in samples of clams, tubeworms, and hairy snails.

Another one of his professors did deep sea trawls like the ones we are currently doing on this research cruise. He helped his professor with analyzing the fish and identifying them. Dr. Drazen saw for the first time an anglerfish and dragon fish. He was hooked on the deep sea and learning more about it.

Dr. Drazen worked on national marine vessels with assisting in their trawls. He was more interested in the ecology of the animals. The rat tail fish was the most predominant fish around the area, and Dr. Drazen was interested in what they ate and how they reproduced.

He worked at MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) for a little under 3 years. There he worked on a high pressure fish trap and on the ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) all the way down to 4000 meters. He researched the snail fish, rat tail, and eelpouts.

He is interested in the climate change in the deep sea. By studying the metabolism of deep sea fish, it could be determined whether or not that fish will have a problem dealing with the increase of acids in the deep due to climate change. If the fish has a fast metabolism, then it will probably not be effected that much. If the fish has a slow metabolism, then there could be a problem.

Dr. Drazen is an amazing person who has accomplished a lot over the years. I am very honored to be apart of his research cruise.

John Yeh

John is the Oceanographic Instrument/Data Specialist. He received his undergraduate degree from University of California at Berkley in Chemistry. He was a chemist for a little over a year. John has always possessed a great love for the ocean. He is an avid surfer and diver. The ocean is his true passion and it brings him great happiness. This love of his led him to pursue his master’s degree in Hawaii.

He received his master’s from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Oceanography. During his master’s program, John built a camera system for his thesis research. He has always enjoyed building things and found it very rewarding. He worked with Dr. Drazen throughout his master’s program. This time-lapse baited camera has been used to look at the scavenging communities in the main and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Dr. Drazen hired John to help build and assemble the respirometer when he received funding for this current research cruise.

John has also built an underwater digital recorder for a state funded project. Video data from the recorder is used to assess the effectiveness of restricted fishing areas in increasing abundance and size of commercially important bottomfish species in Hawaii.

His next adventure will a cruise to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands this June. The objective of this research cruise is to catch animals at 3,000 to 4,000 meters observed in photographs from the time-lapse camera system for identification purposes. His next project is to build a trap to capture the scavenging animals at those depths. At least one species he hopes to capture (an eelpout observed in the time-lapse imagery) has not been documented in the islands before.

John is a key component to this research cruise. I have enjoyed assisting him and being apart of the respirometer pit crew.

Jason Friedman

Jason is in his first year as a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Oceanography. He received two bachelor’s degrees from Cornell University, B.S. in Evolutionary Biology and B.S. in General Oceanography.

For the last four summers, Jason has worked at Cornell's Marine Laboratory in Maine. He began as a student, and then became a Teacher's Assistant (TA). He also did work as the dive management officer. He taught a marine mammal course. They dissected three dolphins and six seals. Jason enjoyed learning about these animals.

He enjoys learning about the anatomy of fish. During this research cruise, his goal was to cross-section different fishes from different depths and different lifestyles. Jason first cuts the abdomen of the fish and then makes four slices along the tail. He tries to find the different muscles of the fish, red and white muscles. Through cross-sectioning, he can learn how fishes move under water. Cross-sectioning plus the data from the tissue samples work together to give more accurate information on the movement of fish.

The Big Island has a deep-sea pipeline that carries fish from 800 meters to the surface. Jason hopes to collect respirometry data on the fish that surface from this pipeline. Eventually he would like to be a professor at a university.

To learn more about Cornell's Marine Laboratory, please visit this site http://www.sml.cornell.edu/.

Nicole Condon

Nicole is also in her first year as a graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Biological Oceanography. She received her undergraduate degree in Marine Biology at the University of New England in Maine. Her passion for the deep sea led her to the University of Hawaii because of their wonderful deep sea program.

She is studying metabolism and trophic ecology (food web) in sharks, skates, and rays. These are vulnerable species because they do not grow as fast as other fish species. Many times they are over fished in shallow waters. Her favorite shark is the Frill shark.

Nicole is working on her hook contraption project to collect sharks and skates here in Monterey, California. Her design is an aluminum square with many hooks around the outside. An anchor is attached with a magnesium release. Magnesium corrodes, dissolves, in water over a premeasured time. Nicole’s magnesium will corrode in about an 8 hour time period. After the magnesium corrodes, the aluminum square begins to rise to the surface.

This will be her first deployment of the hook contraption. I’m happy to help and be apart of her research project.

Michelle Kay (Me!)

Hi! I am a 6th grade science teacher at Dole Middle School in Kalihi Valley. I received my B.S. from Illinois State University in Elementary Education. I’ve lived in Hawaii for almost 9 years. My own love for the ocean and marine life brought me to the beautiful island of Oahu.

My teaching career first began teaching 5th grade at Haha’ione Elementary School in Hawaii Kai. I then taught 4th and 6th grade at Jefferson Elementary School for about 5 years. I have always enjoyed science & marine science and wanted to teach at the middle school level. I currently teach 5th and 6th grade marine science at Punahou School during the summer and 6th grade science at Dole Middle School during the school year. I have enjoyed teaching at Dole for the past two years.

My passion for marine science has led me to volunteer at Coconut Island for shark research and Dolphin Quest of Oahu to help with the education program. When I heard about Dr. Drazen’s grant proposal, I submitted my resume to be considered as the teacher to be involved with this research project.

Words cannot express how grateful I have been to be apart of this project. I have learned so much during this time, and I look forward to the second part of this research cruise this October.

Please visit my class website to see all the exciting learning that takes place!!

http://www.dolemiddle.k12.hi.us/mkay/Site/Welcome.html

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 10 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-10T21:15:00.000-07:00

This morning's weather started out pretty well, but the winds picked up and so did the swells. The respirometer was deployed around 8:00 am to 1000 meters. We are hopeful that when we recover it tomorrow morning, the respirometer will have fish inside the chambers.

After deploying the respirometer, the first beam trawl was released to 1000 meters. The trawl was on the seafloor for about 40 minutes before it was hauled back up. Look at this octopus!!

A sea pig getting dissected. This one was a female with eggs.

The seas started to get a little rough while the deployment of the camera. The camera will be deployed 2000 meters for the first time. I'm anxious to see what kinds of fish are roaming around at that depth.

The final trawl was released to 2000 meters. Again, it took about 3 hours for the entire process of releasing the trawl, staying on the seafloor, and then hauling it back to the surface. The 2000 meter trawl brought up another crab, a large juvenile skate, sea stars, and more sea pigs.

This is a sea spider.

Jason cross-sectioning Donna's favorite fish.

Today was a short day, but I was still a little tired. I took a quick nap before dinner, and had my lovely picture taken.

I've really been enjoying this research cruise, getting to know everyone, and making new friends.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 9 R/V Point Sur Part 2

2009-04-09T19:06:00.001-07:00

After we finished with the fish from the first trawl, it was time for the hook contraption recovery.

Nicole was hoping to hook sharks and/or skates. Instead, she got a lot of rat tail fish. This was her first deployment for this contraption. Even though she didn't hook the fish she wanted, I think she was very successful.

The camera and respirometer were both retrieved in the early evening. They will both be deployed again in the morning.

The last trawl of the day was released at 6:00pm. It took about 2 hours for it to sink to the bottom, and then return to the surface. This was another very successful trawl.

Here we have Shaara showing safety first!! =)

Look at this huge crab!!

If you look closely in the picture below, you can see John holding the little spiny crab from the first trawl over the larger crab's head. I think John said the large crab is how big the little spiny crabs will get. WOW!! =)

As I said before, the rat tail is very common in this area and can grow extremely large. This one is over a meter long!!

Dr. Drazen is about to dissect the rat tail and take samples. The heart was huge!!

Today was a long, fun, and eventful day!!

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 9 R/V Point Sur Part 1

2009-04-09T10:54:00.000-07:00

This morning was cloudy and chilly. Today will be the first day Nicole deploys her hook contraption. Her goal is to catch sharks and/or skates. This is her first every deployment. We are very hopeful that it will be successful.

There will be two 1000 meter trawls today. All the trawls before today were with the otter trawl, but from now on it will be with the beam trawl. The beam trawl is designed for deeper trawls.

Mariah and Shaara get ready to separate the fish.

Here are pictures of a beautiful sea star.

This is a sea cucumber, but it's often called a "sea pig". I think they are so cute. I am bringing three of them back to school with me. =)

Look how little these crabs are compared to the fish. They are so tiny with many spines all over their body and legs.

This is the rat tail. They are very common in this area and can grow to be extremely large.

Donna is about to dissect the rat tail and take tissue samples.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 8 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

I woke up to a beautiful Wednesday morning. We will have one more 500 meter trawl, and then later in the day will be a 1,000 meter trawl. The first trawl gathered many fish that we’ve already seen in the previous trawls. There were more hagfish, sablefish, rock fish, and even a deep-sea eel like fish which is very uncommon for this area.

If you look closely in the picture above, you will note the pinkish-reddish fish (rock fish) has its eyes bulging out. These fish have air pockets near their eyes and when the fish is raised through the different pressure levels, the air pockets expand with air. The air expands the eyes, stomach, and swim bladder.

The pictures below are of a skate. You will notice that it appears to have four eyes on top. Skates only have two eyes, but they have holes behind their eyes which are called spiracles. The spiracles allow water to come through and pass over its gills.

The camera and respirometer were both recovered this morning. Yesterday, it was discovered that the doors had a problem with closing. John cut the paddle that spins in the respirometer to allow the spring loaded doors to close. He only cut the paddle for the control chamber to test if it would work. Luckily the control door did close!! =)

All of the bait was stolen from the other three chambers, and many amphipods were found inside the chambers. Do you remember amphipods? They are the little creatures that remind me of maggots. Today, John will cut the paddles in the other chambers. The respirometer will be deployed later today at 1,000 meters.

After the recovery, it was time for the deep 1,000 meter trawl. This trawl takes over an hour and half to complete. It takes about 45 minutes for the trawl to reach 1,000 meters, and then it stays on the seafloor for about 7 minutes. Finally it starts coming back to the surface and that takes another 45 minutes.

While waiting for the 1,000 meter trawl to surface, Nicole worked on her shark and skate contraption. She will deploy her contraption tomorrow morning. She is studying the metabolic rate of sharks, skates and rays, and is also studying trophic ecology, the food web.

As I stated before, when fish are brought up to the surface from the deep, they expand from the pressure. Once the net came to the surface, it floated because of the expanding fish.

This trawl was extremely deep, so the net weighed a lot with all the fish. The net had to be craned up and then down to the fish container.

We had a very successful trawl at 1,000 meters. The fish are again identified and measured. Some are released back into the ocean, while others are dissected and have tissue samples taken.

Shaara is releasing crabs that were brought up with the trawl.

Donna with her second favorite fish, a rat fish.

The Dover fish is a flat fish. This flat fish is extremely slimy and slippery. Mariah and Shaara are measuring the total length of the fish, while Nicole records the information on the data sheet.

I recorded the measurements and marked the tissue samples taken from this snail fish.

Of course, we are always having a good time! =)

Here are some pictures on tissue sampling.

Tonight ended with deploying both the camera and respirometer to 1,000 meters. Tomorrow we will retrieve them.

The moon was gorgeous tonight!!!

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 7 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

This morning was cold and rainy. It was a lot more difficult to recover the respirometer than yesterday’s video. The wind was up, and the swells were rocking the ship. The acoustic signal was sent first, then the respirometer floated to the service, and finally it was grappled and brought back on deck. It even had a Sablefish hanging off one of the hooks.

After getting the respirometer safely on deck, it was determined that something was wrong with the chamber doors. For some reason the doors were not closing properly when it reached the seafloor. The line in the chamber needed more force to trip the spring loaded door to close. Hopefully the next respirometer deployment later today will catch some fish in the chamber. It will be recovered tomorrow morning.

The first trawl of the day had some problems. First the weather was still bad, and the wooden doors did not seem to stay open. Eventually it seemed as though the doors finally separated, and the trawl was sent down to 500 meters. This trawl did not have as many fish as the other trawls. After putting the fish on ice, they were identified, dissected, and had tissue samples taken.

The video below is of a hagfish. You may have seen these fish on the Blue Planet DVD eating the dead carcass of a whale. These fish look and move like a snake. If you watch closely, you will see that they do not have eyes. They have what are called “eye spots”. These eye spots are photoreceptors. The photoreceptors allow the hagfish to detect light. As you notice in the video, they are slimy. You may hear me scream a little when it touched me. =)

Luckily the weather changed, and it got a little nicer out. We were able to do another trawl, and this one was much more successful.

Our last task today was to deploy the camera 500 meters.

Today was a long day and everyone seemed a little tired.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 6 R/V Point Sur Part 2

2009-04-06T09:29:00.003-07:00

This trawl has been the deepest so far. It brought up many large fish. The next trawls will be sent to the depths of 1,000 meters and possibly 2,000 to 3,000 meters. I can’t wait to see what deep-sea fish is brought up from those trawls.

=)

Monday night's beautiful sky!!

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 6 R/V Point Sur Part 1

2009-04-06T09:29:00.001-07:00

This morning started with the recovery of the camera. Again, an acoustic signal had to be sent down to release the anchor from the camera frame. After the camera floats raise it to the surface, it is brought to the ship by grappling. Grappling is when you throw a hook that is attached to a rope overboard to capture the object. You have to throw it beyond the object, and then reel it in. After the camera was back on board, it was taken apart and the camera photos were uploaded to the computer. I hope to get some photos from Dr. Drazen, so I can upload them onto the blog.

After the camera was safely back on board, it was time for the recovery of the respirometer. The same technique is used to recover the respirometer as the camera. First the signal is sent and then they grapple the line to bring it closer to the ship. The respirometer will be deployed again later today.

The first trawl was released after the recovery of the respirometer. This time, the trawl was set for 250 meters. The trawl captured many fish and also skate eggshells again. Some of the skate eggs still had baby skates inside. The video below shows 2 baby skates. You will notice the yellowish-orange sac on each of them. The size of the yolk sac shows the development stage of the baby skate. If the yolk sac is large, then that means the baby skate is in the early development stage. If the yolk sac is small, then that means the baby skate is about to leave the shell. The baby skate gets its nutrition from the yolk sac.

The second trawl was deployed for 500 meters. The trawl is recovered differently than the camera and respirometer.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 5 R/V Point Sur Part 2

2009-04-05T20:16:00.001-07:00

Today we did two otter trawls at 200 meters. They were both extremely successful. We got many of the same fish from the 100 meter trawls, but this time, the fish were a lot bigger. There were even empty skate egg casings. I’ll be bringing some of those egg casings home for my classroom. Again, the fish from the trawls get separated, identified, measured, and some get dissected. Many of the fish are released back to the ocean. Unfortunately, the sea gulls are constantly around waiting for their next meal.

Some of these fish have photophores on their bodies. These photophores light up when they are in the ocean. Some fish use the photophores for protection and also to attract food. The trawls do come back to the surface fairly quick. Sometimes the fish come up too quickly and their swim bladder balloons.

Tomorrow, we will recover the camera and respirometer in the morning. The respirometer will be deployed to 200 meters after the data is collected from the electronic brain. There will be two more trawls at 200 meters.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 5 R/V Point Sur Part 1

2009-04-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Today was another early rising day at 5:30 am. This morning we needed to recover both the camera and respirometer. Remember how the respirometer is brought back to the surface? An acoustic signal is sent down over the exact place the respirometer was released. Then the weights are released, and the floats allow the respirometer to rise. This is the same procedure for the camera. An acoustic signal is sent down over the exact location the camera was released. The signal is sent down, and the anchor is released to allow the camera frame to surface.

It took about a minute for the camera frame to surface. It was now time to see if any fish or sea creatures got their picture taken. The pictures will give a pretty good idea of what kind of deep-sea creatures are at 100 meters.

Finally the sunrise!!! =)

The camera takes pictures every 2 minutes. It was only in the ocean for about 12 hours, so it took about 600 photos. Normally, the camera would be in the ocean for about 24 hours. It has the ability to take 1,200 photos during that time. When John put the camera card into the computer, I was amazed to see all the deep-sea creatures that visited the bait on the anchor. Dr. Drazen is going to allow me to post a few of the pictures the camera took. This is Dr. Drazen’s research cruise and these pictures belong to him. They will be copyrighted. Please remember if you ever use any pictures from the web or any other resources, you always give credit to the source.

Here are the pictures from the camera that was deployed 100 meters. In the first picture there are sun stars, hagfish, crabs, a sea star, a midshipment (that is the one curled up near the wood on the right side of the picture), and the bait, milkfish.

If you look closely to the right in this picture, you will see a small poacher fish. Don't forget that you can click on the picture to enlarge it.

Thank you Dr. Drazen and John Yeh for allowing me to post your amazing deep-sea fish pictures!! =)

After the camera recovery, the next task was to send the acoustic signal to start the recovery of the respirometer. Again, it did not take that long since the respirometer was only sent to 100 meters. The challenging part was getting the ship in position to recover it. Unfortunately the sun was in the wrong place for us to see the respirometer floating at the surface. Luckily we have an awesome crew. The Captain Jeff and Chief Mate Paul were able to successfully position the ship to get the respirometer safely.

The chambers were all empty, but the bait holder had many tiny, tiny creatures crawling all over it. To me, they looked like little maggots. They are called amphiods. They are little scavengers that eat dead carcass. You can see in the video how tiny they are and the bones from the bait fish in the bait holder.

*Remember to allow the video to buffer and completely download. It will make the video go smoothly.*

After everything is ready to go again, the camera and respirometer will be deployed.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”

Day 4 R/V Point Sur

2009-04-04T23:29:00.001-07:00

Today was another early morning. It started with a beautiful sunrise. The first thing on the agenda was to recover the respirometer. The ship returned to the exact latitude and longitude coordinates of where it was dropped on Thursday. Dr. Drazen and John sent the acoustic signal to release the weights. The respirometer only went down 100m (600 ft.), so it surfaced in only a few minutes.

Unfortunately there weren't any fish inside the chambers. The first two respirometer deployments will only be sent down 100m. There will be another respirometer deployment later today to 100m. We hope there will be fish with the second deployment.

The camera will also be deployed today. It is attached to a frame with floats, a strobe light, and bait on an anchor with a scale bar. The floats are used to make the frame float to the surface. The camera needs a strobe light to take the picture. It's just like using the flash on your camera when you take a picture in a dark area. The same concept applies to why the strobe light is needed for the camera to take a picture.

Obviously the bait is needed to attract fish and other deep-sea creatures toward the camera. The anchor is used to weigh down the frame. The frame floats above the anchor that has gone down to the seafloor. This first camera deployment is 100 meters. The scale bar, that is also attached to the anchor, is needed to take measurements of the fish and other sea creatures that get their picture taken. The scale bar is like a ruler you use at school, but this scale bar is sectioned off by 2 1/2 inches while your ruler is sectioned off by 1 inch. The camera is usually deployed for 24 hours, but this deployment will only be about 12 hours.

There is a deployment everyday for the respirometer and camera. Once the respirometer was recovered, and the data collected, it was time for its second deployment. Again, it will only go down to 100 meters. There are about 2 trawls everyday. Today the trawl went out for its 3rd time and last time at 100 meters. Tomorrow the trawl will be deployed to 200 meters.

The trawl stays at its specified depth for about 15-20 minutes, and then it's pulled back up. After the trawl is back on deck, the fish are separated, measured, and sampled.

Today wasn't a long day because we had to return to Moss Landing Port. A cable that is needed for the camera did not make it over to California with the other supplies. The cable was shipped to Moss Landing from Hawaii, and we had to return to pick it up. Once we got back to the dock, we had to visit the sea lions.

We will head back out to sea tomorrow morning at 5:00.

=)

“This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0727135. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).”