The Graduate School of Oceanography at the Univ. of Rhode Island will acquire several items of oceanographic instrumen- tation to be placed in a pool of shared use equipment. This equipment is maintained for use on or in association with the R/V ENDEAVOR, a research vessel owned by the NSF and operated by the university. A substantial part of the ship's opera- ting schedule during 1989 is in support of NSF-sponsored research projects. The instrumentation will also increase the capabilities of the ship and of the University to support research and engineering activities. The instrumentation includes: -MicroVax shipboard data management system and components for real-time acquisition and display of large data sets, -Optical disk drive system and other equipment for increasing shared-use, sea-going computing capabilities, -A precision salinometer for determining the salinity of seawater. -Transmissometer for measuring turbidity and other optical properties in the water column, -Niskin bottles for collecting discrete seawater samples at various depths in the water column, -Precision acoustic pinger for determining position of an instrument package relative to the surface or seafloor, and, -Equipment transport cases for safely shipping equipment to and from the ship. The instrumentation described above will increase the capability of the organization to support NSF-sponsored research and engineering projects.
