Our first day of sailing consisted of voyage preparation. This included tying everything down and expecting the worst sea conditions. Pete and I managed to get the wet lab set up for the experiments that we will be conducting. We are trying to find out how the biology in the Tasman Sea is affected by the internal waves through … Read More
Falkor: Calibration Celebration
Good scientific data is wonderful, but data is not very useful if it isn’t accurate. The tricky bit about using the ADCP on this cruise is that it will be attached to the CTD rosette. This is called a “Lowered” ADCP or LADCP. The CTD carries batteries on it that have metals and electrical currents that can interfere with the … Read More
Catching the Wave!
A very big part of this project depends on a piece of equipment called the ADCP (acoustic Doppler current profiler). This is one of the instruments that will help the scientists to find the location and breadth (the “beam”) of the Tasman Sea internal tide. To do that, they need to identify the difference in the speed of the water … Read More
More Q & A
Ms. Pfaff’s 6th grade Earth science class (period 3) asks, “Why are internal waves so important, that you decided to research them?” Internal waves are important from two perspectives. First, they have the ability to distribute ocean energy from lunar tides to various parts of the ocean. Energy (both heat and turbulence) is moved around the ocean by either tides … Read More
Greetings from the RV Falkor
The second leg of the TTIDE cruises is set to take off from Hobart on the RV Falkor. We have been busily prepping our instruments, eager to get underway. A two-day delay in port, due to an electrical backup system that needs repairing, has given us a good amount of time to prepare for the big seas and big science … Read More
We’re 24 hours from launch!
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