“I have traveled all over the world. I get to work with a lot of interesting people. It’s what I do, it’s not only work for me, it’s part of my life.” Mark Smith has been a cook at UC San Diego for 22 years, first in a dining hall on the main campus and then onboard SIO’s research vessels. … Read More
AUVs Studying Waves and Currents
As you may recall, Dr. Eric Terrill’s group was onboard in December to test drones and a remote-controlled kayak for scientific purposes. They’re back aboard R/V Sally Ride, this time with a different set of autonomous vehicles. They have multiple instruments for measuring the air-sea interaction that occurs at the surface of the ocean and upper water column from the … Read More
Trace Metals
R/V Sally Ride has its first bubble! It consists of a fort of plastic sheeting with filtered air fed in through a flow hood to create positive pressure (see header photo). Dr. Kathy Barbeau and her graduate students set it up in the wet lab in order to keep their work area clean of contamination. Their experiments focus on such … Read More
Zooglider Science
Leg 3 of this R/V Sally Ride cruise is underway after switching out the science party in Oceanside. Samples are being collected by a few different groups, including Scripps professor Mark Ohman and undergraduate and graduate students from his lab. We are operating in the vicinity of a zooglider that was launched recently from a small boat. The glider is an unmanned vehicle that carries … Read More
Ground-Truthing
Onboard R/V Sally Ride, and in oceanography in general, a lot of sensors are used to collect information. In order to check that inferences made are backed up with data, ground-truthing is required. On leg 1 of the current cruise, scientists used passive and active acoustic sensors to determine the density of animal populations. There are sensors attached to the bottom of … Read More
Buoys in the California Current
Dr. Uwe Send’s lab group at Scripps Institution of Oceanography consists of grad students, scientists, technicians, and engineers that fabricate, maintain, deploy, and recover instruments all over the world. This week they’re on R/V Sally Ride recovering a mooring, and deploying a new one in its place. This one is attached to a surface buoy, unlike the other mooring operations done on the … Read More
Crew Introductions: Able Seaman
“It’s so awesome – the research, the science…you feel like you’re doing something good with your life. Just to know I’m part of it – loading the gear on, making sure everyone’s safe when they’re operating. It gives you that satisfaction of bettering the world. I wouldn’t get that from a 9-5 job. I’m incredibly grateful to be here.” AB … Read More
International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day has been observed for over a hundred years. On March 8, R/V Sally Ride had a science party of eighteen, eleven of whom were female. Professors, engineers, technicians, undergrad and graduate students, and even high school students come to do their research on the ship. Click to learn more about female chief scientists and to watch videos about their science … Read More
MOCNESS Trials
The crew of R/V Sally Ride works hard to make the ship as capable as possible. The science plan for this cruise includes multiple deployments of a net called a MOCNESS. Ready for the ridiculous acronym? Multiple Opening/Closing Net and Environmental Sampling (or Sensing, depending on who you ask) System. Other types of net casts on previous cruises have all taken place using … Read More
Night-Time Net Tows
There is a migration of “prey” species like small fish and zooplankton to shallower waters after dark, which are then followed by larger, predatory species. It’s a phenomenon that can be seen using the echo sounder onboard R/V Sally Ride called a Fish Finder that sends out pings at five different frequencies. The plots of sound return data (shown here) are used to … Read More