Location: 44.2ºN 124.6ºW Water Depth: 585 to 615 meters
The Endurance Offshore Study Site is located ~ 1 km east of the Regional Cabled Array Primary Node PN1C. It hosts a cabled state-of-the art Shallow Profiler Mooring and Deep Profiler Mooring maintained and operated by the University of Washington Cabled Array team, and one uncabled mooring shared with Endurance Array, led by Oregon State University. It also hosts a Benthic Experiment Package with extension cables that reach to a broadband hydrophone and digital still camera. Three instrumented science pods on the Shallow Profiler Moorings at Slope Base, Oregon Offshore, and Axial Base have made more that 27,000 profiles since 2015.
The Oregon Endurance Array complements the Washington Line off Grays Harbor also operated by OSU. In concert, these two sites are designed to examine biogeochemical and physical oceanographic processes operating 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 travel from the near-shore to deep waters, providing three-dimensional measurements of ocean chemistry, biology, and currents.