Intellectual Merit. This integrated research and education CAREER proposal will focus on long term dynamics of hydrothermal vent flow at the Main Endeavour vent field and will attract students and teachers to participate in a physical science and engineering discipline. Measurements will be made of the vertical flow, the horizontal (advective) flow, together with temperature fluctuations. Until recently, there has been no method available that could provide these measurements simultaneously over an extended period of time (> months) and that could provide spatially averaged data without requiring placement of sensors within the flow field. This will be accomplished by deploying a newly developed acoustic scintillation system (built through collaborations with industry) at the Main Endeavour vent field. The extended measurements (7 months per year) will monitor changes in flow and heat flux that can then be compared with independent seismic data collected by NOAA/PMEL thus testing the hypothesis that vent flow is affected by geological processes. The Endeavour site lies within the US Navy's SOund SUrveillance System (SOSUS) hydrophone array, which is capable of detecting weak seismic events associated with earthquakes along the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The SOSUS data will provide the opportunity to compare vent dynamics to seismic events for understanding the short- or long-term changes in the hydrothermal flow. Monitoring hydrothermal flow and seismicity can yield clues about the subsurface recharge mechanisms, and biological and chemical changes due to changing vent flow, thus we need to know more about it.
The educational component will be integrated at all stages of this research targeting high school Ocean Science Bowl team members, undergraduate and graduate students as well as high school science teachers. Integration will include student and high school teacher participation in instrument development, field experiments, and data analysis. A graduate student thesis will focus on the long-term variability in vent dynamics. Data and results will be included in revised upper level physical oceanography, and marine sciences for teachers courses introducing quantitative and critical thinking strategies. Since the proposed research focuses on the dynamics of fluid flow and turbulence, a flow tank will be used to demonstrate and visualize the complexity of fluid flow to all students as lab exercises.
Broader Impacts. The broader impacts for this research project include collaborations with industry to support the development of a new instrument that can be used in seafloor observatory initiatives like NEPTUNE. This observatory goal is to link scientists, educators, and decision makers to Juan de Fuca Ridge discoveries via the Internet by laying cables near the hydrothermal black smokers, which are so abundant on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The lifespan for this cabled network will be intended for 30 years and future scintillation systems can be developed to monitor the buoyancy driven flows in real time using this network. Collaborations with other investigators, for example, NSF RIDGE 2000 funded research at the Main Endeavour vent field, could potentially include other data to corroborate results and find correlation of events. These collaborations will enhance the early career of Di Iorio's hydrothermal vent research. The broader impacts for the educational component is to actively encourage high school, undergraduate (women and minorities) and graduate students to pursue physical oceanography or ocean engineering careers, and to broaden their knowledge so that students can become more informed citizens on physical oceanographic issues. Partnerships with high school science teachers will lead to incorporating research into education curriculum that can be disseminated to others by CD media. The development of a small flow tank will enhance the educational infrastructure for actively learning the dynamics of fluid flow. The skills the students, teachers (and the principal investigator) will develop through this integrated research and educational plan will prepare them for academic excellence in these fields (or other disciplines of marine sciences) at all stages of their careers. This proposal will provide the principal investigator with a firm foundation for making a lifetime of integrated contributions to teaching (at all levels) and research.
