Endurance Offshore Study Site
Location: 44.2ºN 124.6ºW Water Depth: 585 to 615 meters
The Endurance Offshore Study Site at OOI RSN Primary Node PN1C will host two cabled moorings and and one uncabled mooring, as well as a seafloor Benthic Experiment Package (BEP). Shared with OOI RSN, this Endurance Array site, led by Oregon State University, is part of two cross-margin instrumented arrays along the Oregon (west of Newport) and Washington margins (west of Grays Harbor). The Newport Endurance Line consists of both cabled and uncabled moorings and seafloor infrastructure, while the Grays Harbor site consists of uncabled moorings. These sites are designed to examine biogeochemical and physical oceanographic processes within these highly productive coastal environments. The ecosystems are significantly impacted by wind-driven upwelling of nutrient-rich currents, and at times by hypoxia events. In addition to the moorings and seafloor instruments, a series of autonomous gliders will travel from the near shore to deep waters and will provide three-dimensional measurements of ocean chemistry, biology, and currents.
The first installation of a state-of-the-art shallow profiling vertical mooring, along with the installations of a deep profiler mooring and a digital still camera is scheduled for Leg 3 of VISIONS '14.
The deployment of the Benthic Experiment Package at 585 meters water depth is also planned, which will house the following instruments:
Broadband Hydrophone
Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP)
Conductivity-Temperature-Depth (CTD) and Dissolved Oxygen Sensors
Turbulent-Flow Current Meter (VEL3D)
pH and CO2 Sensors
Optical Attenuation Sensor