This 3-year award to University of California San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) provides support for technical services during NSF-funded programs on research vessels Revelle, Melville, New Horizon and Sproul. All four vessels are operated by SIO as part of the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS) research fleet. SIO will provide two shipboard technicians on each cruise of Revelle and Melville, and one technician on New Horizon and Sproul, to support seagoing research projects and to maintain, calibrate and provide as basic services for qualified users items from their pool of shared-use research instrumentation, including multibeam sonar operations on R/Vs Revelle and Melville. In addition, the award supports some specialized services on both SIO vessels and other UNOLS vessels on which SIO technical staff will provide support. Such services include seismic reflection profiling and mitigation of acoustic impacts on marine mammals by seismic sources, support of towed, undulating oceanographic vehicle operations, support for 'reference quality' CTD operations, and rock dredging. In. addition, SIO will manage service contracts and provide maintenance for HiSeasNet, a system available to ships throughout the UNOLS fleet, to provide 7x24 Internet connectivity via C-band and Ku-band satellite for ship-shore communications. The services supported here are expected to significantly enhance the operation of the research vessels via cost-effective and expert support of shared-use oceanographic instrumentation. ***
