Offshore Wind: California's New Gold Rush
potential “corresponds to about 1.5 times the state’s electric energy consumption based on 2014 EIA figures” (italics added, EIA = the US Energy Information Administration). The NREL study is based on six likely Pacific wind energy areas, from Crescent City, in the north, near Oregon, to Port Hueneme, just north of LA.CA’s offshore process started in earnest three years ago when a wind energy company then called Trident Wind – now Castle Wind – submitted an unsolicited request to BOEM (Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) to lease a site in the Pacific near Morro
Arctic Rays Chooses GTS as West Coast Rep
Arctic Rays LLC, an underwater technology specialist in the design and manufacturing of high-performance lights, cameras and sub-sea equipment, has announced GTS Consulting as the company’s west coast representative. The territory for GTS Consulting on behalf of Arctic Rays includes California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.
Oceanographer Pisias Honored by US Navy, AGU
A pioneering oceanographer has been awarded by the U.S. Navy and the American Geophysical Union (AGU) for his work to help establish a new scientific field.Dr. Nicklas Pisias, a professor emeritus at Oregon State University, accepted the Maurice Ewing Medal at the December 2018 Fall Meeting of the AGU, a not-for-profit, scientific organization with nearly 60,000 members in 139 countries.The medal, named after trailblazing geophysicist and oceanographer Dr. Maurice Ewing, is given yearly to one honoree in recognition of “significant original contributions to the ocean sciences.”In the late
Subsea Robotics: SOI Mission Discovers New Hydrothermal Vent and Species
and geochemical characteristics of these vent fields were then explored and sampled using ROV SuBastian.Principal Investigators Drs. Robert Zierenberg from University of California Davis, Victoria Orphan from California Institute of Technology, and David Caress from MBARI, along with scientists from Oregon State University, the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, the Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior de Ensenada (CICESE), and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, demonstrated the multi-disciplinary use of submarine robotics while investigating
Construction Starts on OSU's Research Ship
Construction of a new Oregon State University (OSU) bound research ship that will advance the science of coastal environments, and support research on topics such as ocean acidification, hypoxia, and sea level rise, officially began today at Gulf Island Shipyards in Louisiana.Officials from OSU the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Gulf Island Shipyards LLC gathered at the shipyard in Houma, La. for the keel-laying ceremony, marking the start of fabrication of the state-of-the art ship. The ship will be the first in a class of Regional Class Research Vessels funded by the NSF.During the ceremony
The OE Buoy is Taking Shape
An innovative high-tech wave device currently being built in the U.S. will offer marine-based big data centers the chance to power up while cooling down.The project is a display of Irish marine innovation combined with U.S. engineering prowess, and is taking shape in an Oregon shipyard, where shipbuilder Vigor is constructing a marine hydrokinetic convertor called the OE Buoy for U.S. and Irish based wave-power pioneer Ocean Energy. Once completed in spring 2019, the 125 feet long, 68 feet tall, and 59 feet wide wave device will be towed to the U.S. Navy Wave Energy Test Site on the windward coast of
NSF Awards Contract to Continue Ocean Observatories Initiative
organizations a five-year, $220 million contract to operate and maintain the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI). The coalition, led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), with direction from the NSF and guidance from the OOI Facilities Board, will include the University of Washington (UW), Oregon State University (OSU), and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.The OOI is an advanced system of integrated, scientific platforms and sensors that measure physical, chemical, geological, and biological properties and processes from the seafloor to the sea surface in key coastal and open-ocean
MultiBeam EchoSounder Enables First-of-its-kind Research
Sciences, University of Bremen, Germany, and the University of Washington in Seattle are working on a project initiated in 2017 called M3, funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) that monitors the natural release of methane at the Southern Hydrate Ridge (SHR) off the coast of Oregon State.This real-time monitoring is performed by a MultiBeam EchoSounder (MBES), which until recently, was unconceivable due to the high power consumption of the MBES. The M3 project is made possible by R2Sonic’s MBES Sonic 2022, which offers high performances while ensuring low power consumption
AI Guides Rapid Data-Driven Exploration of Changing Underwater Habitats
intelligence at sea can dramatically accelerate the exploration and study of hard to reach deep sea ecosystems, like intermittently active methane seeps. Thanks to rapid high throughput data analysis at sea, it was possible to identify biological hotspots at the Hydrate Ridge Region off the coast of Oregon, quickly enough to survey and sample them, within days following the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) imaging survey. The team aboard research vessel Falkor used a form of Artificial Intelligence, unsupervised clustering, to analyze AUV-acquired seafloor images and identify target areas for more
Scientists Map Fast-moving Fault off Alaska
area is too deep for any obstructions to pose a threat to marine traffic.This research is part of a larger two-year effort between the NOAA Integrated Coastal and Ocean Mapping Program and USGS to map large portions of the Cascadia continental margin in federal waters offshore of Alaska, California, Oregon and Washington
