Proposal Number: 1013400 Institution: University of Minnesota Duluth PI: R. Ricketts
This proposal requests one Shipboard Scientific Support Equipment (SSSE) item for the R/V BLUE HERON; namely a new integrated, GPS-based navigation system. This item will enhance navigational safety and provide greatly improved science support capabilities.
Broader Impacts: The University of Minnesota supports federally funded scientific research on the Great Lakes and routinely exposes graduate and undergraduate students to the marine sciences. The R/V BLUE HERON is scheduled to complete over 60 NSF sponsored days in 2010.
The University of Minnesota purchased a suite of navigational sensors (GPS units and a gyro compass) for the research vessel Blue Heron using funds provided by the National Science Foundation in grant OCE OCE-1013400, ‘Shipboard Scientific Support Equipment for 2010, R/V Blue Heron". The new gear replaced equipment that was failing repeatedly. Since knowing one’s location on the Great Lakes is important for both research and safety reasons, we felt that replacing our failing gear was extremely important. Equipment purchased for the R/V Blue Heron is used by researchers that use the vessel as a research platform. Therefore, the equipment is available to all users of the vessel, from scientists funded by the National Science Foundation to University of Minnesota classes that take students out on the vessel to learn about oceanographic research. Over the last year four projects funded by NSF have used the navigational sensors: J. Austin and K. Matsumoto, OCE-0825633 and OCE-0825576 ‘Collaborative Research: The role of ice in the response of large lakes to a changing climate; J. Austin, OCE-1126453 ‘MRI: Acquisition of two autonomous moored profilers of lake ecosystem research’; OCE J. Finlay and R. McKay, OCE-0927512 and OCE-0927277 ‘Collaborative Research: Sources and sinks of stoichiometrically imbalanced nitrate in the Laurentian Great Lakes’; and S. Katsev, OCE/CO-0961720 ‘Transient diagenesis in organic poor sediments: Lake Superior’.
