Category Archives: news

Pacific tsunami highlights need to prepare

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The tsunami that struck American Samoa this week – and prompted a brief warning on the Oregon coast – illustrates the need for coastal tsunami preparedness, and how far most of the tsunami-prone world has to go toward developing an effective warning and response system.

This CBS News report on the science of tsunamis includes a good animation of how tsunamis occur, along with commentary by Dawn Wright, Oregon State University geosciences professor. National Public Radio, meanwhile, reported on progress toward preparedness in the seismically active Pacific Rim since the devastating tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2004. “The biggest challenge … remains keeping people aware and knowledgeble about this hazard so that they strike, people do the right thing, ” said Charles McCreery, director of NOAA’s Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

In Oregon, Sea Grant’s Pat Corcoran is among those working to make coastal communities and their residents aware of what to do should a tsunami strike our coast:

For more information about tsunamis and preparedness, watch the Oregon Sea Grant video “Reaching Higher Ground.”

NOAA highlights Oregon Sea Grant’s work on climate change communications

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It is a common belief that if coastal resource managers and other communicators could just provide the public with information, people would take appropriate actions. But social scientists conducting research for the past 50 years have found this assumption riddled with misconceptions and are shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior.

—”Helping Managers Communicate Climate Change in Oregon,” Coastal Services magazine, September/October 2009

Among those who are “shedding light on how communications and outreach can more effectively influence behavior,” particularly with regard to climate change, is Joe Cone, assistant director of Oregon Sea Grant. Cone believes that “understanding more about how social science relates to climate science will help us all do our work better and help communities prepare.”

In addition to the Coastal Services article, Cone’s work in this field is featured in several Oregon Sea Grant publications and podcasts.

NOAA to move research ships to Newport

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RV Bell M. Shimada

RV Bell M. Shimada

NEWPORT – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this morning that Newport will be the home of the agency’s Marine Operations Center-Pacific beginning in 2011.

The federal agency chose Newport over bids from Seattle – where four of NOAA’s 10 Pacific research vessels are now based – as well as Bellingham and Port Angeles, WA. The deal awaits signing of a 20-year lease with the Port of Newport.

“This is huge,” Ginny Goblirsch, Port of Newport commissioner and Sea Grant Extension agent emeritus, told the Oregonian. “It means everything. It’s like $400 million over the next 20 years to the community and state. ”

The move is expected bring to Newport approximately 175 NOAA employees, including more than 110 officers and crew assigned to the NOAA ships McArthur II, Miller Freeman, Rainier and Bell M. Shimada, a new fisheries survey vessel expected to join the research fleet in 2010.

The agency went through an extensive public process before deciding where to locate the facility. According to an agency press release, considerations in site selection included NOAA’s infrastructure needs, proximity to maritime industry resources and NOAA labs, quality of life for employees, the ability to meet the desired occupancy date of July 2011, when the agency’s Seattle lease expires.

The federal agency’s vessels are used to conduct research and gather data about the world’s oceans and atmosphere. Newport and OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center are already home to NOAA’s VENTS program, which conducts research on the impacts and consequences of submarine volcanoes and hydrothermal venting on the global ocean.

(NOAA is the parent agency of Sea Grant programs in Oregon, Washington and other coastal and Great Lakes states.)

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Bacterial pollution affects Oregon beaches

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Oregon’s beaches are relatively clean by national standards, but they show sporadic hot spots of bacterial pollution at some popular destinations.

So concludes a study led by Oregon Sea Grant Extension agent Frank Burris.

“It’s definitely human-related,” Burris said. “It’s a significant problem. It’s really Oregon’s biggest beach problem.”

Read the entire article.

Oregon Sea Grant’s Rob Emanuel, writing in his own blog, offers some tips for coastal visitors and property owners for reducing their contribution to the problem.

Documentary Preview: Dan Cox

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Dan Cox is the director for the O.H. Hinsdale Wave Research Lab at Oregon State University.  This bonus footage was recorded for the film Reaching Higher Ground: Oregon Sea Grant’s Tsunami Research and Community Engagement, which has been released to DVD and is available to view for free online.  In this short video clip (which does not appear in the film), Cox explains why the city of Seaside was chosen for developing a 1:50 scale model to flood repeatedly with scale-size tsunami waves.  You can learn more about the project here.

Transcript is available at above link

Crabbers collaborate with OSU researchers to monitor ocean temperature, hypoxia

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launching a crabpot with a sensor attachedCORVALLIS, Ore. – In a unique, symbiotic relationship, Oregon crabbers are working with Oregon State University researchers funded by Oregon Sea Grant to use their crab pots as underwater monitoring stations where data collectors attached to the pots gather vital oceanographic information.

This information might help crabbers more effectively locate their catch while helping scientists provide answers to challenging research questions, such as why and when hypoxia zones form in coastal waters.

(Read more …)

On the Trail of America’s First People

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Loren Davis, the executive director of the Keystone Archaeological Research Fund, is the subject of a profile in the current issue of the OSU research magazine, Terra. The former Sea Grant graduate student’s excavation of a site at Oregon’s Cape Blanco in 2002 is captured in a short video produced by Joe Cone. The video was part of a series of lively short subjects on the theme, “The Fun of Science.”

Oregon Sea Grant wins four awards in international competition

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hermes-logo6Oregon Sea Grant has won four awards – two Platinums, a Gold, and an Honorable Mention – in the international Hermes Creative Awards 2009 competition.

On the Lookout for Aquatic Invaders won a Platinum in the Design/Publication Overall category; Boats of the Oregon Coast was awarded Platinum for Publications/Handbook; Oregon Sea Grant Program Report 2007 earned a Gold for Video/Internal Communication; and Oregon Sea Grant Publications & Videos 2008 received an Honorable Mention in Publications/Catalog.

The Hermes Creative Awards, named for the ancient Greek messenger, is “an international competition for creative professionals involved in the concept, writing and design of traditional and emerging media.” It is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communications Professionals. This year’s competition attracted some 3,700 entries from around the world.

Congratulations to everyone involved in writing, editing, designing, illustrating, and laying out these four outstanding Oregon Sea Grant products!

Natural Resources Fellowship open for applications

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Oregon Sea Grant is accepting applications through May 4 for its Natural Resource Policy Fellowship, which will place one  graduate student fellow in an Oregon state agency for one year beginning this July. This $30,000 fellowship is intended to give a student first-hand experience in natural resource policy at the state level. The student chosen for the fellowship will interview with Oregon state agencies to find the best fit for the student and the agency.

More information