The meeting was held at the NMFS Laboratory in Narragansett, RI on 28 October 1997. Attending the meeting were: David Mountain, Peter Wiebe, Bob Groman, Erich Horgan, Ted Durbin, Maria Casas, Peter Garrahan, Anna Thompson, Jamie Pierson, Jim Gibson, Jack Green, Donna Busch, Toni Chute, Steve Brownell, Peter Berrien, and Donna Johnson. The meeting started at 1000 and was chaired by Peter Wiebe, who also prepared this report.
1. There will be six broad-scale cruises in 1998 with three taking place using the R/V ALBATROSS IV (January, May, and June) and three using the R/V OCEANUS (February, March, and April). The Chief Scientists for the six broad-scale cruises were selected except for the April period as follows:
| January | John Sibunka |
| February | David Mountain |
| March | Peter Wiebe |
| April | ?? |
| May | Jack Green |
| June | Ann Bucklin |
Two possible candidates for the April cruise are Charlie Miller, and David Townsend; additional discussion is required to determine who will be Chief Scientist in April.
2. MOCNESS Training Workshop: To insure that there is an adequately trained cadre of individuals that are familiar with the assembly, operation, and trouble-shooting of the 1-m2 and 10-m2 MOCNESSs, a training workshop will be held in December. The target dates for conducting the course are 17/18 December. Instructors will be Peter Wiebe, David Nelson, and Erich Horgan. The course will be held, if possible, on the R/V ALBATROSS IV in Woods Hole, since the vessel will be in Woods Hole through the holidays and the first cruise of the year involves the GLOBEC broad-scale work. This should also enable the vessel to be ready for the MOCNESS work well in advance of the sailing date.
3. Personnel: New personnel to groups at URI and NMFS were introduced. David Mountain said that a new addition to the hydrography group in Woods Hole was Cristina Bascunan and that she would be going on a good number of the broad-scale cruises. Anna Thompson was a new addition to the Planktoneers (Ted Durbin's group). Steve Brownell was a new addition to Jack Green's group.
Since the R/V ENDEAVOR will be laid up next year, one of the marine technicians at URI, Dave Nelson, will be available to go on all of the broad-scale cruises. The understanding is that Dave would stand a watch and be an integral part of the science party. A question arose about his working the standard 12 hour day that all in the scientific party are expected to put in (URI marine technicians normally work only 8 hours/day). Ted Durbin said he would discuss this with Dave and John Freitag to see what arrangement would be made to accommodate this requirement for longer hours.
Discussion then turned to the bunks available on the cruises and who would be going on each of the cruises. On the R/V ALBATROSS IV, there are 14 science bunks; on the R/V OCEANUS there are 18 bunks. The following table lists the number of individuals that will be coming from the various groups contributing to the scientific party on each cruise. The "?" indicates uncertainty that the number of individuals will actually participate on the cruise.
| Affiliation/Group | Jan
AL |
Feb
OC |
Mar
OC |
April
OC |
May
AL |
June
AL |
| URI | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| NMFS(fish) | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| NMFS(hydro) | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| NMFS(Caldarone) | 2? | |||||
| UNH | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | 1 |
| WHOI(MOC10) | 1? | 1? | 1? | |||
| WHOI (acous) | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||
| WHOI(Gallager) | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| UME | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | ||
| OSU | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 12 | 13 | 15 | 13 | 12 | 12 |
| Needed Volunteers | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
The total does not count the numbers with question marks and some of these people may be accommodated with volunteers.
4. Requests For Sampling And Sampling Issues: A review was done of the requests that groups not usually present on the cruises have for sample collection/preservation.
MOC-10 samples: Larry Madin has been the lead investigator responsible for the work-up of the 10-m2 MOCNESS samples, but not their collection at sea. His group will provide assistance in setting the MOC-10 up and readying it for use on cruises. He may be able to provide a volunteer from his lab on one or two cruises. His group will make sure an adequate supply of bottles, lids, formalin, and buffer are on-board for each cruise to handle the preservation of the MOC-10 samples.
Genetics Samples: Ann Bucklin requested that samples from the 1-m2 MOCNESS tows and pump samples be taken for preservation in alcohol as was done this year. She will provide sample jars and lids, and in lieu of supplying alcohol (which is more cost effectively purchased in bulk by NMFS), she will purchase supplies for the MOCNESS of equivalent value.
18O-16O: Bob Houghton has requested that water samples be drawn for 18O-16O analysis from the rosette bottles on the CTD casts as done in past years. He will supply the bottles and David Mountain's group will do the work at sea.
Phytoplankton Samples: Jay O'Reilly has requested that a surface sample from each CTD be preserved in Lugols Solution for phytoplankton species analysis as has been done on past broad-scale cruises. He will provide sample jars, lids, and preservative. Note: these samples have been collected in the hopes that funds will eventually become available to enable them to be worked up. The thought was voiced that this could be a good graduate student thesis project.
Drifter Deployments: Dick Limeburner has not officially asked for assistance in deploying satellite track buoys at strategic locations during broad-scale cruises, but it is anticipated that he will. Donna Busch will call him to determine what his plans are.
Microzoo Video: Scott Gallager has requested that water samples be drawn from CTD samples and that someone follow a protocol to make high resolution video measurements on the living microzooplankton in the samples. It was recognized that this was a task that required some training and more time than the core group of technicians on a cruise could often devote to it. In situations where Gallager could not put a person on-board to take care of this, it was decided that one or more of the volunteers should be charged with doing it after appropriate training by someone in Gallager's group.
ADCP: There was discussion about who was now responsible for overseeing the collection of ADCP data on the R/V ALBATROSS IV. This needs additional discussion since it is not clear whether Charlie Flagg and Julio Candella are interested in these data or whether they are funded to even archive the data sets coming from this vessel. Others, however, are interested in the data, and there is a need to collect and archive them properly.
PAR: There is a need to get a PAR light sensor on the R/V ALBATROSS IV so that all of the broad-scale cruises have this data set. Bob Groman will see what is required to get one installed that is the same as that on the R/V OCEANUS.
David Mountain described a peculiarity in the CTD data acquisition that causes false depths being displayed during a cast with a result being that rosette sample bottles are closed at other than the intended depth. The final processed data are not affected by this peculiarity. A change in the protocol for CTD deployment and data acquisition may be needed and this is now being contemplated.
There was discussion about the MOCNESS sampling protocol issues which Ann Bucklin raised in her cruise report for the April 1997 broad-scale cruise (R/V OCEANUS cruise 302) and the need to alter towing strategy to reduce the "flying" time especially when shooting the net system in deep water. No agreement for change came out of the discussion, but additional work needs to be done on this issue before the January 98 cruise. Related to sampling protocols, was the recommendation coming out of the last EXCO meeting that the priority for Standard Station # 32 be changed to priority #2 to make sure sampling took place at this station under most situtations. There was a question about whether this would mean adding a pump profile and a 10-m2 MOCNESS tow. Ted Durbin said that samples from a pump profile would not likely be worked up since they don't have enough people to work up all the samples that are now being collected. Erich Horgan put in a plea for more MOC-10's in that part of the Bank because on many cruises, samples from that area are lacking. It was thought that a single oblique MOC-10 might be appropriate. It was decided that the issues raised in this discussion about MOCNESS should be revisited during the MOCNESS workshop and final decisions made then.
5. Gear Inventory: Most of the gear required for the broad-scale cruises will be supplied by the groups actively using them. Thus the CTD (Mark V) will be supplied by NMFS hydrography group, the 333 Bongo nets will be supplied by the NMFS fish group, the 253 Bongo nets and the plankton pump will be supplied by Ted Durbin's group.
For 1998 broad-scale cruises, the 1-m2 MOCNESS will be supplied by the URI shipboard technician group. There will likely be a net use fee, but it was not clear exactly what this was and Ted Durbin agreed to look into this. Normally Ted Durbin's group supplies the 150 µm mesh nets and NMFS provides the 335 µm nets, but the NMFS nets are in poor condition and it may be necessary to use the URI 335 µm nets and pay the use fee. There is also a need to make sure the URI bridle is short enough to allow the net system to be deployed with adequate clearance over the starboard rail of the R/V OCEANUS. If the bridle is too long, Peter Wiebe said that WHOI MOCNESS bridle could be used. The MOCNESS stanchions used on the R/V OCEANUS also needed to be located and refurbished, if necessary, and the status of the fume hood needs to be checked.
The 10-m2 MOCNESS will be supplied by NMFS (Greg Lough's) for all six cruises along with a 16-bit electronics system. A new bridle and new stainless steel u-bolts will be constructed at WHOI for the trawl to replace parts that wore out on the June 97 broad-scale cruise.
There was a question about whose computer and printer would be used for the MOCNESS data acquisition. The URI system was deemed most likely to be the primary system and a backup would be supplied either by Peter Wiebe or Greg Lough.
Spares are needed for the swaged fitting and cables that are used to attach the MOCNESS net bars to the toggle release mechanism. Cod-end buckets are also in short supply and spares are needed.
6. Sample Preservation And Recording: John Sibunka raised the issue of sample jar labeling because of problems that the Sandy Hook laboratory has had interpreting data reports for sample workup by the Polish Sorting Center. Sibunka would like to have both Standard Station number and Consecutive Station number listed on the label. There was considerable discussion about doing this at sea. It seems that just doing what is now done is difficult and there was a lot of resistance to accommodating this request at sea. An alternative would be for the additional information to be added to the label when the samples are prepared for shipment to Poland (or wherever they are to be analyzed). Peter Wiebe suggested developing a bar code system that could quickly and efficiently be used to uniquely tag each sample. It was decided that Durbin/NMFS fish groups would solve this problem through future discussions.
A related issue has to do with the event log checking at sea which in spite of strenuous efforts always seems to have significant mistakes. David Mountain said that an automatic checking program both for Quattro-Pro and MATLAB was being developed to assist this process.
The meeting ended about 1230.