Proposal Number: 0910894 Institution: University of Minnesota Duluth PI: R. Ricketts
The proposal requests five Shipboard Scientific Support items for the University of Minnesota Duluth; namely an expanded fixed fire suppression system, ship?s service generator overhaul, HVAC up-grades in the dry lab, new RADAR?s, and new life rafts. All items will either enhance safety or 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 50 NSF sponsored days in 2009.
The University of Minnesota purchased numerous items to improve operations on board the research vessel Blue Heron using funds provided by the National Science Foundation in grant OCE OCE-0910894, ‘Shipboard Scientific Support Equipment for 2009, R/V Blue Heron". We replaced older life rafts, radars and a generator. Additionally, we added or upgraded our fire suppression systems from an older Halon system to two carbon-dioxide systems. We also added hydraulic pumps for redundancy, upgraded our electrical system and added air conditioning and venting to our laboratory spaces. 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 gear we added to the ship using funds from this grant: 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’.
