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This blog post was originally published on R/V Falkor Cruise log. View and follow here!
The unusually bright Oregon sun beamed down on me as I watched the towering Astoria Bridge fade into the background. Falco The boat had just pulled out of the dock and we were heading into the Columbia River. Looking ahead, I could see two land masses that surrounded the mouth of the Columbia River like a giant crab’s claw.
This is the infamous Columbia Bar, which I just learned has been nicknamed the “Graveyard of the Pacific” because of the many shipwrecks it has caused. FalconI’m very interested in the ocean floor outside the sandbars. In fact, we deliberately sink a lot of equipment to the bottom to get a better look.
But we weren’t looking for shipwrecks; we were looking for bubbles. Methane bubbles, to be exact. When it comes to finding bubbles, our crew has the most experience. Between Schmidt Ocean Institution, my own institution, the U.S. Geological Survey, and our other partners on this mission, we’ve conducted dozens of methane seep dives around the world.
The twist here, though, is that the hotspots where we look for methane bubbles are actually Natural gas hydrateFrozen crystals of ice and methane have Well-documented Located off the Oregon coast.
This is particularly exciting for me because I am an ecologist who focuses on the benthic communities that live on the ocean floor. I love studying all the puzzle pieces and how they fit together to allow these ecosystems to thrive, even in extreme conditions like these.
The concept of a food web, with multiple lines connecting the parts, is well known, but the anchors of these food webs are often difficult to identify. In this case, the anchor is a fundamental source of energy or food.
At these depths, light from the ocean surface doesn’t reach it and the amount of organic matter drifting down from the surface (also known as marine snow) is unpredictable, so some organisms have evolved to rely on methane gas bubbling up from seeps on the seafloor.
I have studied this species in many places, but now, Falcon“I have a unique opportunity to study methane itself. Together with colleagues from the USGS, Geomar, the British Geological Survey, and the University of North Carolina, we have the ability to bring together a diverse range of talents to really deepen our understanding of the seafloor food web.”
One of the most interesting things we will face is our equipment and technology. In addition to powerful multi-beam scanners and other sensors, Falcon already at ROV SubastianWe have some landers and even a bubble tank that we’ll put into the ocean floor. These will allow us to capture bubbles of methane, as well as rock samples from the ocean floor and organisms that live in the sediments on the ocean floor.
But our focus isn’t just on the seafloor. Once the methane comes out of the seeps, we want to know where it goes, how much of it is consumed by organisms in the water column, and how much of it ultimately reaches the surface. This is exciting because we have the opportunity to connect the physical and chemical environment of these recently discovered upslope seeps to the biology and ecology.
As we sail across the Columbia Bar, the last piece of land we will pass is called Cape Disappointment, so named because an explorer who had been searching for the mouth of the Columbia River gave up and turned back before reaching his destination.
With everything we have now Falconwe will not take the risk, whether it is technology or expertise.
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