2004 Vertigo Cruise<\/a><\/p>\n\t VERTIGO has been supported primarily by the U.S. National Science Foundation in collaboration with the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, the U.S. Department of Energy, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (Belgium) and other national and international sponsors.<\/p>\n VERTIGO scientists are heading to cold and nutrient rich waters in the NW Pacific on the R\/V Revelle in search of a region where particle fluxes out of the surface ocean are thought to be among the world’s highest.<\/p>\n\t\t\tK2 Location\n\t\t A site called “K2” has been chosen for our second major research expedition, since this is where the Japanese already maintain deep ocean sediment traps which capture sinking particles below the “twilight zone” where VERTIGO scientists will be working. At “K2” the Hi<\/strong>gh La<\/strong>titude T<\/strong>ime S<\/strong>eries (HILATS<\/strong>) Observatory program has been in place only since 2001. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution<\/strong><\/p>\n Jim Valdes, Steve Manganini, Steve Pike, Chanda Bertrand, Ken Buesseler, Devin Ruddick, Robert Bidigare (on \u201cloan\u201d from UH), Front- Carl Lamborg.<\/p><\/div>\nKen Buesseler – Senior Scientist, Principal Investigator University of Tasmania, Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n Steve Bray, Frederika Ebersbach, Tilla Roy, and Tom Trull.<\/p><\/div>\nTom Trull – Principal Investigator National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research, New Zealand <\/strong><\/p>\n Phil Boyd, Carolyn Walker, and Mark Gall<\/p><\/div>\nPhil Boyd – Principal Investigator Joe Cope, Debbie Steinberg, and Stephanie Wilson.<\/p><\/div>\nDebbie Steinberg – Principal Investigator University of California, Santa Cruz <\/strong><\/p>\n Sarah Smith, Mary Silver, Yao Zhang (from Xiamen University, China).<\/p><\/div>\nMary Wilcox Silver – Principal Investigator Erik Fields and Damien Kunz.<\/p><\/div>\n Lawrence Berkeley National Lab <\/strong><\/p>\n Alex Morales, Jim Bishop, and Kate Barton.<\/p><\/div>\nJim Bishop – Principal Investigator Marc Elskens and Willy Baeyens.<\/p><\/div>\n Hokkaido University, Japan<\/strong><\/p>\n Suguru Okamoto<\/p><\/div>\n Suguru Okamoto (participant from Dr. Sei-ichi Saitoh’s lab)<\/p>\n Kagoshima University, Japan<\/strong><\/p>\n Toru Kobari<\/p><\/div>\n Toru Kobari, Principal Investigator<\/p>\n\t\t\tThe Ship R\/V Roger Revelle\n\t\t R\/V Roger Revelle, pictured here in the western Pacific Ocean in 2010, is a general-purpose, Global Class oceanographic research vessel.<\/p><\/div>\n R\/V Roger Revelle<\/em> (AGOR 24) is a 274-foot (83 meter) research ship operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a graduate division of the University of California, San Diego. It is the sister ship of the R\/V Atlantis<\/em>, WHOI\u2019s deep submergence support ship that carries the submersible Alvin<\/em>.<\/p>\n Revelle<\/em> is the second of three new-generation AGOR oceanographic ships built by the U.S. Navy for operation by American oceanographic institutions. R\/V Roger Revelle<\/em> began construction in early 1993, was launched in April of 1995, and sailed on her maiden voyage from Mississippi to San Diego in July, 1996. Over the last 10 years Revelle<\/em> has supported many different oceanographic cruises mostly in the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n The ship is named for Prof. Roger R. D. Revelle (1909-1991), who was one of the twentieth century\u2019s most eminent statesmen of science. He was a distinguished university researcher and professor, the officer in charge of the oceanographic section of the Bureau of Ships (now Naval Sea Systems Command), a creator of the Office of Naval Research and head of its Geophysics Section, and a director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Professor Revelle was one of the first persons to recognize, study, and interpret to the public the issues of carbon dioxide emissions, the greenhouse effect and global warming. His major awards and prizes were numerous. One of them, his Agassiz Medal from the National Academy of Sciences, is displayed in the ship\u2019s conference room, along with his naval officer\u2019s dress sword.<\/p>\n Roger Revelle made landmark scientific contributions to subjects ranging from sea floor heat flow to the capacity of the ocean to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. He had an extraordinary breadth of imagination and inquiry, coupled with a deep conviction that science at its best was science in the service of humankind.<\/p>\nOn This Page<\/h3>\n
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Funding Agencies<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n\t\t\tOverview\n\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/vertigo_map2-300x199.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t\tParticipants\n\t\t![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_whoi-300x202.jpg\")
\nJim Valdes – Senior Engineer, Principal Investigator
\nSteve Pike – Research Associate
\nChandra Bertrand – Research Assistant III
\nCarl Lamborg – Postdoctoral Scholar
\nSteve Manganini – Research Specialist
\nRobert Bidigare III
\nDevin Ruddick\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_tasmania-300x220.jpg\")
\nSteve Bray
\nFriederike Ebersbach
\nTilla Roy\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_NIWA-Otago-300x220.jpg\")
\nMark Gall
\nCarolyn Walker\nVirginia Institute of Marine Science
\n<\/strong>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_VIMS-300x220.jpg\")
\nJoe Cope Gall
\nStephanie Wilson\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_santa_cruz_xiamen-249x300.jpg\")
\nSarah Smith
\nYao Zhang (Xiamen University)\nUniversity of California, Santa Barbara – Dave Siegel Lab
\n<\/strong>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_santa_barbara-300x220.jpg\")
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\nAlex Morales
\nTodd Wood\nUniversity of Brussels, Belgium – Frank Dehairs’ Lab
\n<\/strong>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/participants_VUB-300x220.jpg\")
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These devices were developed at WHOI by engineer Jim Valdes and scientific collaborators Drs. Jim Price, Ken Buesseler and Debbie Steinberg (VIMS). Their mission is to sink to a preprogrammed depth, catch sinking particles in the 5 attached clear tubes and then float back to the surface after 3-5 days. It may sound simple, but it is quite a balancing act to get these to sink to the exact depth we need. If we are off in our calculations by the weight of even a few quarters, the whole package can sink too deep and never return, or never sink at all! During VERTIGO, we’ll have up to seven of these devices floating below and days later popping back up to the surface where they relay their position back to us on the ship via satellite.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/gear_ctd.jpg\")
CTD is an acronym for the parameters that this device measures: \u201cConductivity, Temperature, and Depth.\u201d The CTD itself is a set of small probes attached to a large metal rosette wheel (see image). The rosette is lowered on a cable down to the seafloor, and scientists observe the water properties in real time via a conducting cable connecting the CTD to a computer on the ship. The water temperature and salt content, or salinity (which is computed from the conductivity), is important to oceanographers because it tells us about the types of water masses present, and how they are moving in the ocean.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/gear_mocness.jpg\")
A series of opening and closing nets are lowered to depths of up to 1000m as part of the VERTIGO program. These MOCNESS tows provide samples of the mid to large marine zooplankton and other animals too slow to move out of the way. In fact on VERTIGO, we will be using not only the MOCNESS nets, but other styles of plankton nets that are lowered to depth and raised or towed slowly to collect an abundance of marine samples for biological identification and experiments on board with live animals.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/gear_mulvfs.jpg\")
MULVFS is a multiply unit large volume filtration system developed by Dr. Jim Bishop and colleagues. A large winch is used to lower a power cable into the ocean to depths up to 1000m and up to 12 pumps are attached that filter 10,000 liters of seawater through filters of various sizes.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/gear_claptrap.jpg\")
Our Clap traps are sediment trap moorings designed to collect sinking particles using simple collection tubes suspended in the ocean at a single depth. We use three to collect particles at depths of 150, 300 and 500 meters. They are so named because most upper ocean traps are open tubes of some design, but ours \u201cclap\u201d shut when the 3-5 day mission is over. They are also unique in that we use a pair of \u201choley sock\u201d drogues (guess how they got their name) as a sea anchor, so that the tubes travel at a speed that is close to the water they are sitting in at depth (which is much slower than the surface ocean currents where the buoy floats).<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/website.whoi.edu\/cafethorium\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2019\/05\/gear_splitter.jpg\")
This may look like a simple device, but it\u2019s the Cadillac of sample \u201csplitters\u201d. The idea is that each scientist wants to be analyzing chemical and biological properties of the exact same material that is caught in our sediment trap. On a rocking and rolling ship, that means we want to combine material from each of the 5 collection tubes from one depth (there is not enough material in one tube, and sometimes, tube to tube variability in flux complicates the story). This mix of water and particles from the sediment trap tubes is shaken and gently gravity fed into the top of the splitter. The clear plastic top spins rapidly over the openings of 8 plastic bottles below, and thus delivers within a few tenths of a percent, the same amount of particles in solution to each container. The next step is filtration and processing of the samples in as many as 7 different ways. We use three different filter types, some of which are dried and some frozen in liquid nitrogen to preserve them for analyses on shore. The 8th sample is left in solution with preservative as a library of sorts from each collection. All of this work is conducted inside of a clean air bench, a space on a regularly dirty ship, where filtered air alone passes over the bench space where we are handling our precious sediment trap samples.<\/p>\n