Author Archives: kightp

About kightp

Pat Kight is the web and digital media specialist for Oregon Sea Grant at Oregon State University.

Cooperative marine resource institute to remain at OSU

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Oregon State University will continue to host and lead a federal federal/academic research partnership to study marine resources in the Pacific Northwest, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced yesterday.

The award means that NOAA will continue funding the Cooperative Institute for Marine Resource Studies (CIMRS), which was established at Oregon State in 1982, for at least five and up to 10 more years.

Following a competitive application process, NOAA chose Oregon State to continue to administer the CIMRS partnership,  which focuses on marine resources such as hydrothermal vents, seafloor volcanoes, marine mammals, and marine ecosystems. Research will also seek to improving protection and restoration of these marine resources.

Based – along with three NOAA labs – at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, CIMRS is one of 18 NOAA cooperative institutes nationwide. The agency funds cooperative institutes at universities with strong research programs relevant to its mission.

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Largest ocean science project in history to launch off Oregon coast

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Benthic testNEWPORT – News these days from the Oregon State University seems to have taken its cue from Jules Verne. There’s talk of underwater gliders, ocean observatory platforms and coastal profilers. This, however, is no sci-fi plotline, but the Ocean Observatories Initiative, the largest ocean science project ever funded by the U.S. government – and a big chunk of it is happening right here off our coast.

Scientists from the country’s leading oceanography institutions are at work on a five-year construction project that, when finished, will give instant access to anyone able to click a mouse to information from the surface waters to the very depths of the sea.

“It’s a huge deal,” said Bob Collier, OSU’s program manager. “It’s not going to replace the old way of going out to sea and making measurements, but it is going to add to them so we can better understand the ocean. It’s not only happening here. There are installations going on around the U.S. and around the globe. We’ve gotten to the point across the nation where we need to have eyes on the ocean 24/7 in order to answer some of the most important questions.”

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John Byrne to headline Heceta conference

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Dr. John Byrne at recent NOAA dedication in NewportDr. John Byrne, president emeritus of Oregon State University and former administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), will tie together themes that emerge at the seventh annual Heceta Head Coastal Conference in a presentation called “Discovery, Learning and Engagement for Tomorrow’s World.”

Dr. Byrne is a late addition to this year’s conference, which takes place Oct. 28-29 at the Florence Events Center in Florence, and will speak at 3:15 on Saturday. He will link together the themes raised by other presenters, and explore the kind of research needed in a future with a changing climate and more than seven billion people, with an emphasis on engaging society to apply the knowledge gained through research.

For more information, and to register for the conference, visit http://www.hecetaheadconference.org.

Marine educator blogs from shipboard

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Bill Hanshumaker, Sea Grant’s marine educator at the Hatfield Marine Science Center, is blogging from sea off the Pacific coast this week as he travels with scientists seeking to learn more about seafloor geology and earthquakes.

The team is traveling aboard OSU’s R/V Wecoma with a crew from the Cascadia Initiative, an onshore/offshore seismic and geodetic experiment that studies questions ranging from megathrust earthquakes to volcanic arc structure to the formation, deformation and hydration of the Juan De Fuca and Gorda plates.

The team takes advantage of an Amphibious Array of 60 ocean-bottom sensors installed with funding from the 2009 US Recovery Act to improve undersea earthquake monitoring and advance our understanding of geologic processes in the seismically active region off the coasts of Oregon, Washington and Northern California. The system also includes onshore GPS stations and earthquake monitoring instruments. Participating institutions include Columbia University, IRIS, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and UNAVCO, a nonprofit consortium of universities supporting geoscience research and education.

This is the third major research cruise over the past decade for Dr. Hanshumaker, who has been educating the public about science for 16 years at the HMSC Visitor Center, and before that, at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.  In 2005 and 2006, he joined  the Sounds From the Southern Ocean cruises with a team led by NOAA/OSU researcher Bob Dziak, who is also one of the principle investigators on the current project.

As he’s done on previous research voyages, Bill is blogging about the voyage, the research and the research team, this time from http://blogs.oregonstate.edu/billgoestosea.

Shipboard blogging can be a challenge, thanks to a hectic research schedule and unpredictable Internet access, but Bill is posting as time and conditions permit, and also plans to share the experience with Visitor Center audiences on his return to Newport.

Sea Grant’s Hunter honored by OSU

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Award recipient Nancee Hunter, right, with fiancee George WinklerCORVALLIS – Nancee Hunter, Oregon Sea Grant Education Programs Director for the past four years, was honored with the  Oregon State University Professional Faculty Excellence Award at last week’s OSU University Day 2011.

Hunter, who has managed Sea Grant’s education programs and the Visitor Center at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, was recognized for exceptional service in a non-academic unit and beyond the traditional academic categories of  teaching, research and extension.

In her time with Oregon Sea Grant, Hunter ledd major changes within the Visitor Center, building networks and partnerships, examining new approaches to marine and public education, nurturing ideas and leveraging nearly  $3.5 million in funding for marine and public education programs and research.

OSU President Ed Ray presented the award at the Sept. 21 University Day Awards Dinner,  and Hunter was also recognized during the following day’s campus-wide University Day event.

Hunter has left full-time Sea Grant employment to pursue a PhD.,  but continues to work part-time in an advisory capacity with interim program director Shawn Rowe until a new director is named.

Register now for Heceta Head Coastal Conference

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Registrations are being accepted now for the Heceta Head Coastal Conference, October 28 & 29 at the Florence Events Center.

The theme of this year’s conference  is “Oregon’s Ocean: Catching the Next Wave of Discoveries.”

Angela Haseltine Pozzi of the Washed Ashore Project will talk at Friday’s dinner about her work of turning marine debris into art.  Saturday’s program features opening remarks by Representative Jean Cowan (Chair of the Coastal Caucus), current research in Oregon’s ocean, a panel on the Role of Research, Student Posters and the keynote speaker, Dr. Robert Costanza, the new Director of PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions and a leader in the field of environmental economics, will share his vision for Oregon’s ocean.

The conference is co-sponsored by Oregon Sea Grant. Full program and registration information is available from http://www.hecetaheadconference.org/index.php

Volcanic vents offer peek at acidic future

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The underwater volcanoes off a tiny Italian island are helping scientists peer into the future of a world altered by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide emitted into the air and absorbed into the oceans.

The waters just off the island of Ischia mirror the projected conditions of the Earth’s oceans at the beginning of the next century because the volcanic vents found there infuse the water with large helpings of carbon dioxide, or CO2, which turns seawater acidic.

Research has shown that the growing acidic conditions are harmful to some sea creatures — those that build their protective shells with calcium are increasingly prevented from doing so the more acidic waters become.

The fates of these creatures and the stability of the ocean food chain are a major concern over the next century and beyond because of the carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere by humans, as the oceans absorb about 30 percent of this carbon dioxide.

“One part of climate change that is indisputable is that CO2 is rising in the atmosphere — it’s easy to measure,” said Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University geologist. “And it’s indisputable that it is making the oceans more acidic — we can measure it.”

(Oregon Sea Grant has supported previous deep-sea research projects by Dr. Chadwick).

NOAA’s Ark comes to HMSC

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Treasures of NOAA's ArkNEWPORT – The Treasures of NOAA’s Ark, an exhibit of historic artifacts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its predecessor agencies, is on display at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center through January 2, 2012.

Featuring 19th century maps and charts, early scientific instruments and text about the history and science behind the nation’s ocean charting and exploration efforts, the exhibit got a sneak preview at the recent grand opening of NOAA’s new Marine Operations Center here, and then moved across the street to the HMSC Visitor Center.

The history of NOAA and the nation are intertwined. It is difficult to talk about weather, water, climate, and commerce without discussing the agency and its ancestors: the U.S. Coast Survey, the U.S. Weather Bureau, and the U.S. Commission of Fish and Fisheries.

NOAA has custody of a wealth of resources that recall the agency’s history and service to the nation: Maps, nautical charts, photographs, books, scientific instruments and other artifacts. In 2005, many of the items were assembled in an exhibit at NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, MD as part of the  agency’s 100th anniversary celebration. Since then, they have been on tour at science museums across the US.

They can be viewed at the HMSC Visitor Center from 10 am – 4 pm Thursdays through Mondays. The Center is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

Take a virtual tour of NOAA’s Ark

Outside magazine profiles Sea Grant’s Pat Corcoran

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PITY POOR CASSANDRA, blessed by Apollo with the power of prophecy, cursed with the fate of ­disbelief. She tells the people what’s coming. She suffers their laughter, absorbs their scorn. Then she watches her prediction come true. Yeah, you told us so, they’ll say as they bury the dead. Congratulations, jerk.

Patrick Corcoran feels her pain. It’s his job. Every day, he rises at dawn and goes out into the world to tell people to prepare to meet their doom. Or, rather, to prepare to escape it.

Corcoran is a professional geographer in Astoria, Oregon, a misty fishing port where the Columbia River meets the ­Pacific Ocean. He’s a high-energy guy, 50, with a little ­Billy Bob Thornton to his look. Loves his job and loves his coffee. Drives around in his ­Toyota ­Tacoma all day with an 11.5-foot-long Taka­yama paddleboard strapped to the rack. He’s a coastal natural-hazards specialist with Ore­gon Sea Grant, a marine version of an agri­cul­tural extension service affiliated with ­Oregon State University. Cor­coran prophesies earthquakes and tsunamis five days a week. …

(Read the whole article at Outside Online...)