Oregon Sea Grant launches new magazine

Posted on February 23, 2012 by kightp

Confluence, a new magazine highlighting the work of Oregon Sea Grant, makes its debut this week, both in print and online.

Produced by Sea Grant Communications, the magazine will be published three times a year, each issue focusing on how the program integrates research, education and public engagement tools to address a specific ocean or coastal topic.

The first issue looks at Oregon Sea Grant’s efforts in coastal earthquake and tsunami preparedness, with feature stories about Extension Coastal Hazards Specialist Patrick Corcoran’s work helping communities prepare for seismic disaster and Lori Cramer’s Sea Grant-supported research into how disadvantaged populations are affected by such events.

Additional stories look at the program’s latest research grants, its Summer Scholars student internship program, and a major, NSF-funded research project examining how people learn in aquariums, museums and other non-classroom settings.

The online edition, available at seagrant.oregonstate.edu/confluence, includes video, resource links and additional articles produced specifically for the Web, as well as instructions for subscribing to both the print and online editions.

Confluence is edited by Rick Cooper and designed by Patricia Andersson; the Web version is produced by Pat Kight. The inaugural issue features articles by Nathan Gilles, 2011 Sea Grant science communication fellow. Joe Cone, Sea Grant assistant director and communications leader, conceived of the project and guided its development.

OSU’s new research vessel arrives in Newport

Posted on February 22, 2012 by kightp

NEWPORT – Greeted by welcoming blasts from the horns of NOAA research ships berthed nearby, the Research Vessel Oceanus steamed under the arch of Yaquina Bay Bridge in a rainy mist on Tuesday and into her new home port at Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center.

It was the end of a 28-day voyage for the Oceanus, which sailed out of its former home at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute on Jan. 25 and cruised down the East Coast and through the Panama Canal before heading northward for Oregon and her new home port.

Marine science fans on both coasts were able to follow the voyage via a Webcam affixed to the ship’s mast, which also beamed its geographic coordinates to a Google map set up for the occasion.

OSU acquired the Oceanus via the University National Oceanographic Laboratory System, a consortium of 60 academic research institutions that operate 16 vessels around the country. OSU, a member of UNOLS, was retiring its venerable research vessel, The Wecoma, and looked to the consortium for a replacement. Although the two vessels are about the same age, a National Science Foundation rapid assessment determined that the Oceanus would be more cost-effective to operate for the next 5-10 years. By that time, OSU hopes to have a new ship.

The Oceanus was greeted by the same sounds that saw her off from Woods Hole: A chorus of horns from other research vessels, this time those docked at the new NOAA Marine Operations Center facility not far from the Hatfield Center docks.

A formal retirement ceremony for the Wecoma is being planned for March.

(Photos by Bruce Mate. Additional photos on the Oregon Sea Grant Flickr gallery)

OPB highlights Sea Grant researcher

Posted on February 17, 2012 by kightp

Oregon Sea Grant’s Guillermo Giannico and his study of the role flooded farmlands can play in fish survival are the subject of a new episode of Oregon Field Guide, broadcast on on Oregon Public Television this week.

Giannico, a fisheries ecologist with OSU’s Department of Fisheries & Wildlife who also serves as Sea Grant Extension fisheries specialist, was part of a team that set out a few years ago to learn whether dry-all-summer ditches that criss-cross Willamette Valley agricultural lands might house fish during the wet winter months.

What they found surprised them – and some of the farmers, too: A thriving winter habitat for several species of native fish.

Watch the Oregon Field Guide video, Ditch Fish:

More information:

The Life Aquatic in Flooded Fields (Oregon’s Agricultural Progress, 2006)
Dr. Giannico’s profile at Oregon Sea Grant
Dr. Giannico’s lab at the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife

Port Orford launches national tour of Ocean Frontiers film

Posted on February 9, 2012 by kightp

PORT ORFORD – Ocean Frontiers, a new feature-length film about ocean management and conservation, will launch its national tour in Port Orford, which stars in the film as an example of how science and fishing can work together to manage marine resources.

The debut screening starts at 5 pm Saturday, Feb. 11 at the Savoy Theatre in downtown Port Orford. followed by a reception in the nearby Community Building, with Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, First Lady Cylvia Hayes, representatives of state and local government and members of the Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT) expected to attend. A second screening is scheduled for 4 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets are $10 and are available only online, at www.oceanfrontiersportorford.eventbrite.com

The film will also be shown at the Performing Arts Center in Newport at 7 pm Feb. 22.

Port Orford is one of several US coastal communities featured in the 80-minute film, which tracks the evolution of marine resource management from a “maximum allowable catch” approach to a growing recognition that resources are finite, and need to be managed for the future as well as the present. The film explores the shift toward ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning tools that rely on science, and an informed and engaged public. Communities from the Pacific Northwest to Boston Harbor, the Florida Keys, the Gulf of Mexico and even the cornfields of Iowa are featured.

POORT figures prominently in the film as an example of how resource users, scientists, conservationists and others can work together to help understand, protect and manage ocean areas for the benefit of the resource – and the people who depend on it. Ongoing collaboration between fishermen and scientists in the south coast community was a strong factor in the state’s decision to establish one of Oregon’s first marine reserves at Redfish Rocks, just off Port Orford.

Oregon Sea Grant has supported the community-based effort since its early days, helping bring fishermen and scientists together and providing information and assistance as the group grew and evolved. Sea Grant helped the community design and conduct surveys and interviews that let the town build its first long-form community profile to give resource managers greater insight into how fisheries reach deep into the community’s social and economic life. The format and interview has since been applied to other Oregon coastal towns, and is proving to be a model for communities elsewhere in the US.

Learn more:

Watch a 10-minute trailer for the film:

Follow the R/V Oceanus on her voyage to Oregon

Posted on February 4, 2012 by kightp

The newest addition to Oregon State University’s research fleet, the R/V Oceanus, entered the Panama Canal today to make the transit from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, marking roughly the mid-point of the trip from her former home port at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to her new home at OSU’s docks in Newport, Oregon.

You can follow the trip via a live Webcam, courtesy of OSU Information Services, at

http://webcam.oregonstate.edu/oceanus/

The image and map update every few minutes, as long as the ship’s satellite uplink permits. An attached map even tracks the ship’s position by latitude and longitude (although the “larger view” map is still labeled with the name of the R/V Wecoma, the vessel the Oceanus will replace).

The Oceanus left Woods Hole on Jan. 25, and is expected to arrive in Newport in mid-February.

(Photo by S. Sutherland)

Sea Grant teams with state agencies to prepare for Japanese quake debris

Posted on February 2, 2012 by kightp

Model of possible debris dispersal (image courtesy of NOAA)

As the one-year anniversary of Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami nears, Oregon Sea Grant is teaming with state and local agencies, non-governmental groups and marine scientists to prepare for the possible arrival of earthquake debris on Oregon shores.

In a conference call this week, the group heard that state and county leaders, OSU Extension and the Hatfield Marine Science Center are receiving growing numbers of questions about the debris currently floating toward US coastlines, and began charting a communication strategy to help answer those questions.

OSU oceanographer Jack Barth, an expert in ocean currents, said the debris is still months away from making West Coast landfall, although occasional buoyant items might move more quickly. In October, a Russian ship discovered a small Japanese fishing boat in the waters north of Hawaii, and it was definitively tied to the tsunami, Barth said. “It was about where we thought it should be, given the currents.”

Many questions about the debris have to do with concerns that it might be radioactive, given the the incidents at Japan’s Dai-ichi nuclear plant that followed the earthquake. Kathryn Higley, professor and head of the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics at OSU, said the lag time between the tsunami and the nuclear incident, coupled with the vastness of the ocean, makes it unlikely that the debris will pose any radioactive risk. The material has been tossed by wind and sea for months now, Higley said, and most traces of radioactive elements will have washed into the sea. “While we may be able to detect trace amounts of radioactive material on this debris, it’s really unlikely that there will be any substantial radiation risk,” she said.

Meanwhile, Oregon Sea Grant’s marine Extension specialists on the coast have been working with multiple public and private partners, from state and local governments to conservation and fishing industry groups, to map out a communication strategy for the debris landing.

Jamie Doyle, Sea Grant Extension specialist in in Coos and Curry counties, said one concern is what happens to personal effects that survive the ocean crossing and wind up on Oregon shores, where they may be found by beachcombers.

“A lot of people lost their lives, and many people still have family members who are missing,” Doyle said. “We need to be sensitive to the possibility of finding something that may be of personal significance to someone in Japan.”

The Seattle office of the Consulate General of Japan has asked that those who find something that could be considered a personal keepsake or artifact report it to local authorities, or to the consulate in Seattle at 206-682-9107.

Patrick Corcoran, Sea Grant’s Astoria-based Coastal Hazards specialist, said Oregon’s focus thus far has been on research and “building the capacity to respond” to the arrival of the debris. Specific information will be forthcoming, he said.