The Sea Education Association (SEA) requests funds to replace Chirp sonar topside electronics on two vessels, the Corwith Cramer (operating in the Atlantic Ocean) and Robert C. Seamans (operating in the Pacific Ocean). The equipment requested will be used by marine science students and scientists from colleges and research institutions throughout the country. The bathymetric and sub-bottom data generated, which includes areas of the ocean not frequented by UNOLS vessels, will be freely shared with the entire oceanographic community via submission to the NSF Research Vessel data archive, Rolling Deck to Repository (SEA has already begun to submit past data to R2R).
SEA is a member of UNOLS although the vessels are not part of the Academic fleet. SEA represents an important part of the Educational Infrastructure and funds are routinely awarded from NSF through both the Technical Services and Oceanographic Instrumentation Programs.
This proposal did not arrive in time for the panel. It was independently reviewed by email. Only one item was presented for review:
1) 2 ea Knudsen 3260 Echo Sounders
Broader Impacts: The acquisition, maintenance and operation of shared-use instrumentation allows NSF-funded researchers from any US university or lab access to working, calibrated instruments for their research, reducing the cost of that research, and expanding the base of potential researchers.
The purpose of this award was to install modern sonar equipment on two research/education vessels that teach oceanographic techniques and marine science. The ‘Chirp’ sub-bottom profilers funded by the award use sound energy to measure the bathymetry or depth of the ocean below the boat, sort of like a fancy fish finder. Unlike a fish finder, the Chirp is able to penetrate into the bottom of the ocean to show the thickness and layering of sediments that have been deposited over hundreds or thousands of years. Students use this information to study topics in marine geology including selecting where to deploy equipment to collect sediment or rock samples. Approximately 200 college undergraduates, 100 high school students, and 30 graduate students from around the country participate on SEA Semester academic programs each year and learn to use this equipment. While only half of the students are science majors, students from every major are required to learn about science, work in the shipboard laboratory, and complete a scientific research project, so this award is providing technical and scientific training to students in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. We believe it is important for every citizen to be scientifically literate so that we can all make wise policy decisions as a society. While our vessels may look like traditional sailing vessels, they are sophisticated research platforms that provide samples and data from areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean that are not regularly sampled by other research vessels. Each vessel spends approximately 270 days per year at sea and the data students collect for their research projects is then submitted to national archives so that it is available to the global scientific community.
