USMs CONCORDE Deploying Marine Glider to Kick Off Fall Research Campaign

Weather permitting, scientists from Rutgers University will release an autonomous underwater robot in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, Oct. 21 to monitor temperature, salinity, oxygen levels, chlorophyll levels, and sediment concentrations.

The cutting-edge underwater robot is dubbed a marine glider due to the plane-like wings and lack of propellers. The marine glider's deployment will precipitate a larger effort by The University of Southern Mississippi-led CONsortium for oil spill exposure pathways in COastal River-Dominated Ecosystems (CONCORDE) to discover how freshwater outflow from area rivers may have impacted oil's movement after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“We are excited to finally get our feet wet with the fall research campaign,” said Dr. Monty Graham, CONCORDE's Principal Investigator, Interim Director for the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory and Chair of the Department of Marine Science at Southern Miss. “Most of the other GoMRI consortia have field efforts spread over the course of a year, but CONCORDE is focusing on bigger efforts concentrated in a narrow window of time to capture the multitude of processes in the coastal zone. This is a huge undertaking and we are ready to go.”

CONCORDE researchers will explore water movements and marine life distributions in the northern Gulf of Mexico to get a picture of how future oil spills might impact the area. A large scientific team coordinated out of the Southern Miss Department of Marine Science at Stennis Space Center will conduct the fall research campaign in October and early November to coordinate sampling during the time of year when river inputs into the Gulf are usually at their lowest.

The campaign revolves around the research vessel Point Sur and the research vessel Pelican as they undertake overlapping sampling runs to look closely at the way in which water moves through the northern Gulf in order to better understand how this movement impacts marine life.

The RV Point Sur will be out to sea from Oct. 24 to Nov. 8, while the RV Pelican will be out from Nov. 1 to Nov. 7.

A number of complementary efforts by CONCORDE scientists will support the research vessels' work. Dr. Brian Dzwonkowski, assistant professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama, has released drifters in Mobile Bay to study the direction and speed of river water when it enters the Gulf of Mexico.

The Ocean Weather Laboratory (OWX), housed at the Southern Miss Department of Marine Science, is working in conjunction with the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to produce daily satellite images and model outputs. CONCORDE's field researchers will utilize the satellite images and model outputs during the fall campaign, to assist in determining where the ships should focus their adaptive sampling efforts.

Dr. Stephan Howden, associate professor in the Department of Marine Science at Southern Miss, is also working with the NRL, deploying specialized moorings that will examine mixing processes just east of the Mississippi River Delta.

Because of the direct manner in which the Rutgers' glider will assist the two research vessels, however, its release marks the unofficial start of the Fall Research Campaign. Rutgers marine scientist Dr. Travis Miles will deploy the glider RU31 from a small boat 10 miles south of Mobile Bay. Programed to dive along a designated route that mirrors the one the larger vessels will take, it will collect data every second it is beneath the water.

The glider sends measurements from a satellite cellphone in its tail when it surfaces and awaits further instructions before submerging again. Glider RU31 can collect more than 20 profiles every three hours, a huge amount of information. Thanks to its lithium batteries, the glider can stay at sea for two and a half months, thus it will be at sea much longer than the Point Sur or the Pelican. 

Miles explained, “It's like having a third ship to help you understand what's going on.” He added, “We plan to have it out one to two weeks ahead of the two research cruises and keep it out after they complete their mission to help capture in real time any interesting features they see.”

More information about the CONCORDE program and the Fall Research Campaign can be found on the CONCORDE website.