Journals 2005/2006

James J. Dornicik
Ward Melville High School, East Setauket, New York

"Investigating Vertical Mixing at Eddy A4" R/V Oceanus July 14 - August 5, 2005

Journal Index: July 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20        21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27         28 - 29 - 30 - 31 August 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 Additional Resources

July 14, 2005
Arrival in Bermuda

I arrived in Bermuda and took a taxi to the Bermuda Biological Center for Science Research, I will refer to it as the BBSR. Here I met up with Jim Ledwell, the chief scientist and the rest of the Crew. We head down to the harbor in St. Georges to inspect the containers that have all of our scientific instruments and equipment in them.

The research that is being conducted is on an anticyclonic eddy name eddy A4. An eddy is a vortex force that turns off the gulf stream. The overall goal of all the experiments that are being conducted is to study the vertical mixing that occurs due to the eddy. Normally the water in this part of the ocean is nutrient starved. There is some mixing at the surface water, but once you get down to below 20 meters you get into what is called mode water. The mode water tends to be nutrient poor and doesn't get much mixing.

It is believed that any mixing that occurs is due to the actions of an eddy. There is a multitude of equipment that we will deploy to determine if the eddy is causing this mixing. The main thrust of the research involves spraying a streak of a tracer molecule, SF6 in this case, and then measuring the placement of that tracer in the water column. Vertical mixing will also be investigated using several types of floats and an instrument called a Sea Horse.