Breaking Waves

BEND – Oregon Sea Grant’s invasive species specialist, Sam Chan, is the featured speaker for the OSU Cascades Science Pub event on Tuesday, May 21 at McMenamins Old St. Francis School in Bend. The informal event runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m and features a full pub menu and no-host bar.

Chan, a Sea Grant Extension specialist and biologist with the OSU Institute for Water and Watersheds, will talk about how invasive species arrive in Oregon via land, air and sea, and can cause serious harm to our economy and environment.  Learn how these invaders arrive in ways we would never anticipate – through innocent classroom projects, gardening, and on floating tsunami debris – and what you can do to prevent and minimize their impact.  Chan’s research guided the creation of the award-winning statewide “Silent Invasion” program.

Use this online form to reserve a seat for Hitchhikers from Afar: Aquatic Invasive Species & You. Science Pubs are free but due to their popularity, reservations are required no later than 5:00 p.m. the day prior to each lecture.

NEWPORT, Ore. – Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center invites public to explore its marine science labs and Visitor Center,  “behind the scenes”  on Saturday, April 13, when the Newport facility hosts its annual Marine Science Day.

The free event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., will feature scientists and educators from OSU, Oregon Sea Grant, federal and state agencies, Oregon Coast Aquarium, and the nearby NOAA Marine Operations Center-Pacific. It is a chance for the public to explore one of the nation’s leading marine science and education centers.

An full schedule of events is available at: hmsc.oregonstate.edu/marinescienceday

In addition to a varietyof marine science presentations, two research themes will be highlighted. One is the science behind bycatch reduction devices, which will be featured by researchers from NOAA Fisheries, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, OSU, Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, and Foulweather Trawl, a Newport netmaker.

Marine Science Day visitors will see actual bycatch reduction devices and have an opportunity to view videos showing how fish are excluded or retained, depending on their size, swimming ability or other characteristic. Other research will highlight genetics or other tools used to distinguish between wanted and unwanted catch. Scientists will be on hand to answer questions and discuss their research.

“Visitors will learn not only about the problem of bycatch but also about the solutions, which range from simple and elegant to complex and cutting-edge,” said Maryann Bozza, program manager of the center. “All of the different HMSC research displays on bycatch reduction will be grouped together.”

A second theme will be wave energy, highlighting the efforts of the OSU Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center to improve and facilitate testing of wave energy devices and evaluate their potential effects on marine habitats. HMSC’s Sarah Henkel, a senior research assistant professor in the OSU Department of Zoology, will present an update of wave energy developments on the Oregon Coast.

Henkel’s talk begins at 3 p.m. in the Visitor Center auditorium.

Among other highlights of Marine Science Day:

• Visitor Center activities will include new wave energy exhibits, the recently dedicated Japanese tsunami dock exhibit and a new interactive wave tank.
• The center’s new octopus, named “Miss Oscar,” will be featured in a 1 p.m. interpretive talk and octopus feeding demonstration.
• Visitors can take self-guided tours through the facility’s marine research labs, library and classrooms, where scientists will have interactive exhibits explaining their research. Guided tours of HMSC’s seawater facilities and aquatic animal husbandry laboratory will also be offered.

A number of educational activities for children and families will be available, presented by Oregon Sea Grant, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Oregon Coast Aquarium.

The OSU Hatfield Marine Science Center is located at 2030 S.E. Marine Science Drive in Newport, just south of the Highway 101 bridge over Yaquina Bay.

Spring Whale Watch Week coincides with spring break for most Oregon schools and universities, and that makes March 23-30 a great time to head for the coast and look for whales.

Hundreds of giant gray whales, including females and their new calves, travel past Oregon on their way to their spring and summer feeding grounds off Alaska. Many come fairly close to shore, and it’s not unusual to see their spouts – and sometimes the animals themselves – as they swim northward.

OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm during Whale Watch Week, with special marine mammal programs and activities.

Trained volunteers will be stationed at prime whale-watching spots in coastal parks to help visitors learn how to spot the animals, and to share what they know about their life history, biology and migratory habits. Look for the “Whale Watching Spoken Here” signs.

Learn more:

• Whalespoken.org, the official Oregon Parks & Recreation whale-watch site, includes maps showing the best whale viewing areas along the coast.
• Free .pdf downloads of Oregon Sea Grant’s popular Gray Whales brochure, in English and Spanish versions.
• Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute, a multidisciplinary program dedicated to the study of whales and other marine mammals.

NEWPORT – A new tsunami awareness exhibit, featuring a piece of the massive Japanese dock that washed ashore at Agate beach last year, will be dedicated at OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in a public ceremony and grand opening on Sunday, March 10.

The public ceremony, which runs from 2-4 pm,  marks the two-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan. Sponsors include Oregon Sea Grant, the HMSC and the City of Newport.

The dock was among the first – and largest – fragments of debris to wash up on Pacific Northwest shores more than a year after the magnitude 9.03 undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan on March 11, 2011. The dock’s arrival on Agate Beach last June, sparked concern over the potential spread of non-native plants and marine animals, thousands of which were found alive and clinging to the dock.

Teams of state Parks and Recreation workers, scientists and volunteers scoured the dock’s surface and scorched it with blow-torches to destroy the organisms – and also collected specimens for identification and analysis by researchers at the HMSC.

The dock, roughly the size of a railroad boxcar and weighing tons, was sawn into pieces for disposal, and one section was saved to be placed at the Hatfield Center as a memorial to the Japanese disaster – and to aid in educating visitors about the risks of similar tsunamis generated by subduction zone quakes off the Oregon coast.  On initial delivery, however, the concrete-and-steel segment was discovered to be too big for its site, and was hauled to the Port of Newport docks to be recut to fit the space.

Learn more

• HMSC Event news release
• Earthquake and tsunami preparedness

If you’re planning to be on the Oregon Coast this week, grab your camera and help document the latest “king” tide.

King tides are natural events, caused by predictable astronomical factors that generate tides higher than most high tides. By understanding which areas are most affected by king tides, scientists, emergency planners and local officials can get a better idea which places might also be susceptible to high water generated by increasing wave heights, winter storms and a rising sea level.

Since 2011, the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development has invited photographers to help visually document how high the water reaches during king tides  -such as the ones forecast daily for the Oregon coast through this Thursday, Nov. 15. Oregon joins Australia, British Columbia, Washington and the San Francisco Bay area in the documentary effort.

To learn more about the King Tide Photo Project – including where, when and how to photograph the tides,  what your photos should show and how to submit them to the project’s photo gallery – visit the Oregon King Tide Photo Project website.

Good king tide photos will show water levels adjacent to a fixed feature like a piling, seawall or bridge abutment. Including such features allow observers to track how the actual water levels vary over time. f Good photos also must include information about the location, the date and time the photo was taken and which direction the photographer was facing. Two photos taken from the same spot, one during the king tide and the other at a typical high tide, are also very helpful in highlighting these water events.

If you’d like to take part, but miss this month’s event, additional king tides are predicted for December 12-14th, 2012 and January 10-12th, 2013.

Learn more:

• Photographs from the King Tides project, on Flickr

TILLAMOOK – Hypoxia and ocean acidification get a lot of press, but how many people know what these phenomena are, what causes them and what they mean for marine species and coastal communities? Now’s the chance to find out, in an Oct. 23 public forum that aims to take some of the mystery out of the science behind measuring, understanding and minimizing the effects of of these ocean conditions.

The forum, starting at 6:30 pm in rooms 214-215 at Tillamook Bay Community College, 4301 3rd St., is free and open to the public. Pre-registration is encouraged, but not required. For more information, visit the PISCO Website.

Organized by the Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of the Ocean (PISCO) and Oregon Sea Grant, the forum will focus on cutting edge research by scientists from many disciplines, and how resource managers and industries are responding.  A series of speakers will address:

• The definitions of ocean acidification and coastal hypoxia, and how they are related – Francis Chan, OSU Zoology/PISCO
• Why this is happening off our coast and what makes Oregon vulnerable – Burke Hales, OSU College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (CEOAS).
• How scientists are monitoring the ocean for these changes – Jack Barth (CEOAS/PISCO)
• The impacts of acidification on shellfish hatcheries – Alan Barton (Whiskey Creek Shellfish Hatchery)

Speakers will be followed by a question-and-answer panel featuring scientists and representatives of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The event is hosted by PISCO through funding from Oregon Sea Grant.

2012 Heceta Head Coastal Conference

October 26 & 27 — Florence Events Center, Florence Oregon

Registration Now Open: http://www.hecetaheadconference.org/

Oregon’s Ocean: Bringing the High Seas Home

The Pacific Ocean is a dynamic place full of activity and motion.  But what does that mean for Oregonians? This year’s conference will look closely at connections between Oregon’s Ocean and the rest of the globe. We’ll examine the important science, economics, and policies affecting things that float, swim, drift, stowaway, steam, and bob across the Pacific to Oregon’s shores, and vice versa!

Speakers include the First Lady of Oregon, Cylvia Hayes, Representative Arnie Roblan, and researchers and natural resource managers from around the state.

Click on the above link to view the preliminary program agenda and to register.

NEWPORT – At least 350 school teachers, administrator, scientists and guests will gather in Newport Wednesday for the second annual Lincoln County K-12 Ocean Literacy Symposium, “Understanding the Ocean’s Influence on You and Your Influence On the Ocean.”

The Aug. 29 symposium, part of the Lincoln County School District’s annual Improvement Days for school teachers and administrators, is sponsored by Oregon Sea Grant, OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center, the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Lincoln County School District.  Originally aimed at Lincoln SD teachers, the symposium has been expanded this year to teachers from Tillamook County and the Linn-Benton-Lincoln Education Service District.

After convening at Newport High School in the morning, participants will fan out to the HMSC, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the Newport bayfront, Yaquina River estuary and other locations for hands-on breakout sessions exploring a variety of marine science topics, curricula and teaching tools. Topics range from ocean conservation to coastal tsunami hazards, spanning disciplines such as biology, oceanography and marine engineering, and include ocean-related activities and lessons for all grade levels and academic specialties, from science to music and physical education.

The goal is to build understanding among coastal students of the essential principles of ocean literacy:

• The Earth has one big ocean with many features
• The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of the Earth
• The ocean is a major influence on weather and climate
• The ocean makes Earth habitable
• The ocean supports a great diversity of life and ecosystems
• The ocean and humans are inextricably connected
• The ocean is largely unexplored

The symposium grew out of a three year,  $900,000 per year Math-Science Partnership grant from the US Department of Education, administered via the state of Oregon Department of Education. The project teamed the Lincoln County School District with scientists, informal science educators and science education faculty at several academic, non-profit and government science institutions to develop, implement, and evaluate teacher professional development and student learning experiences that focus on ocean literacy and aquatic and marine science.

OSU Ocean Sentinel (right) and WetNZ buoy (background) sit in Port of Toledo Boatyard awaiting deployment at sea. (Photo by Pat Kight, Oregon Sea Grant)

Possible locations for a new “grid-connected” wave energy testing facility off the Oregon coast will be the topic of discussion at community forums next week in Newport, Reedsport and Coos Bay.

Dubbed the Pacific Energy Center, the facility would connect offshore energy-generating devices to the electric grid in what’s expected to be the final step of testing whether it’s feasible and cost-effective to generate power from ocean waves.

The free public forums, sponsored by the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC) at Oregon State University, will take place from 5:30-7:30 pm at

• The Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport (Aug. 20)
• Pacific Auditorium in Reedsport (Aug. 22)
• Coos Bay Public Library, Coos Bay (Aug. 23).

Funded in part by the US Department of Energy, NNMREC is taking the lead in testing the scientific, technical and practical aspects of generating electricity via the movement of the ocean’s waves. A partner program at Washington State University is doing the same with tidal energy devices.

Within a week, the OSU-developed Ocean Sentinel testing platform is expected to be deployed to a designated testing zone two miles off Yaquina Head, on the central Oregon coast – and with it, its first test subject, a wave-energy generation buoy dubbed “WetNZ.”

The Ocean Sentinel is equipped to test multiple generating devices at once and transmit the data back to NNMREC labs for analysis. It is not, however, set up to feed generated energy into the power grid. For that, underwater cable is required.

That would be the job of Pacific Marine Energy Center, still several years in the future and awaiting final approval of a $4 million DoE grant for detailed study and design work. Meanwhile,  the process of finding a suitable site is under way. Locales under consideration are off Newport, Reedsport, Coos Bay, and Camp Rilea near Warrenton, all of which have characteristics that could make them suitable for the project.

“We’ve already been talking with community leaders and other officials for some time about this project, and now we want to broaden the discussion, hear more viewpoints,” said Kaety Hildenbrand, Oregon Sea Grant’s marine fisheries Extension specialist and one of the organizers of the community meetings.

“The purpose of these forums is to help people understand what we’re trying to do, and listen to their interests, questions and concerns,” said Hildenbrand, who has worked with coastal communities on energy siting issues for several years. Much of her work focuses on the effects such large-scale uses of ocean space can have on local communities, economies and people, many of whom earn a living through fishing and other more conventional uses. “One part of our goal is simple. We want to find a good fit, a situation where most residents want this facility and feel positive about it.”

Learn more:

• Full news release from OSU News & Research Communication
• Marine Renewable Energy, from Oregon Sea Grant
• NNMREC Website

Oregon’s Ocean: Bringing the High Seas Home

FLORENCE – The 2012 Heceta Head Coastal Conference brings current ocean science and policy to Oregonians.  Attendees include university scientists, ocean policy agency staff, politicians, students, and the general public.  The conference is co-sponsored by Oregon Sea Grant.

The Pacific Ocean is a dynamic place full of activity and motion.  This year highlights the science of things that float, swim, drift, stowaway, steam, and bob across the Pacific to Oregon’s Ocean.

What to expect: The student poster session is part of a full day program (Saturday, October 27).

A dedicated session allows conference attendees to view posters and interact with student scientists as they explain their research and results.

Why submit a poster?

• Showcase your research
• Gain professional experience
• Practice science communication with a broad audience
• Interact with researchers, decision makers, industry leaders, stakeholders, and other    students
• Awards for top posters (and prizes)!

Submitting a poster: The HHCC invites contributions from advanced undergraduates (juniors or seniors), recent graduates, and graduate students.

The poster submission deadline is September 30. Download the .pdf announcement for details.

For more information on the conference, visit www.hecetaheadconference.org.