A SAFE vessel: Advancing research capabilities to the Gulf Stream

Intellectual Merit

The Marine Laboratory of the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, is awarded a grant to purchase a 27' research vessel to access near-shore and offshore waters from Beaufort NC to the Gulf Stream off Cape Hatteras on a daily basis. The vessel can also be trailered to access points along the North Carolina coast and beyond and will be available to the oceanographic research community at large for research on the eastern seaboard.

Scientific research conducted from the vessel will focus on the Cape Hatteras offshore region and the coastal ocean and the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound estuarine system. The Labrador Current and Gulf Stream converge at Cape Hatteras, creating a dynamic oceanographic feature in which warm and cool waters mix. The Cape Hatteras region continues to receive scientific attention as a biogeographic barrier between the Western North Atlantic Warm and Temperate (Carolina) and Boreal provinces, as a zone of high primary productivity and micro-zooplankton grazing, as a source of carbon flux to slope sediments, and as an area of on-going and projected commercial interests. Research projects using the vessel include study of the distribution, abundance, population structure, acoustic ecology, and behavior of pelagic cetaceans in the Hatteras region, the ecological physiology of transparent midwater organisms, and transport mechanisms of commercially important species spawned offshore to inshore nursery grounds and transport of pollutants from offshore activities into sensitive inshore habitats.

Broader Impacts

Research undertaken from the new vessel will focus on biophysical studies that can be used to inform assessment of environmental impacts across jurisdictional boundaries and inform management and policy decisions. Wind farms, military training activities, fisheries, shipping, oil and gas development, mineral extraction, and living resource protection continue to expand into near-shore and off-shore waters; the vessel will enable studies of the biological consequences of these and other human activities and of the dynamics and processes of pelagic and benthic ecosystems. Near-shore and off-shore research will address national priorities relating to stewardship of natural ocean resources through studies of the abundance, and distribution of marine species (including endangered marine mammals and sea turtles), their relationships to habitats and other species, and the impacts of human activity on these taxa, especially within the context of predictive modeling in response to environmental change. The Marine Laboratory has vigorous undergraduate and graduate training programs and most students in these programs engage in field research with their faculty mentors. Students working on near-shore and offshore studies will be trained in seamanship and at-sea research methods using this vessel.

Marine Laboratory, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University: http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/marinelab/