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Research teams head to Chukchi Sea Two different government-sponsored research programs aim to collect scientific data which will inform planners and decision makers Alan Bailey Petroleum News
The first comprehensive oceanographic and fisheries survey of the Chukchi Sea is under way, with the first of two vessels being used for the survey about to head north from Dutch Harbor, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Aug. 3. A team of marine scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and from federal and state agencies are conducting the survey, with funding from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, NOAA and the State of Alaska Coastal Impact Assistance Program.
And on Aug. 6 the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, announced the departure from Dutch Harbor of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy carrying a team of scientists for a three-week expedition to study marine life in the Hanna Shoal area, in the northeastern Chukchi.
The project announced by NOAA is the first survey to sample the entire marine ecosystem throughout the U.S. waters of the northern Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea, including waters at least 50 feet deep from south of Hooper Bay to north of Barrow on the eastern Chukchi Sea shelf, the agency said.
“We have scientists from UAF, NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game participating in this Arctic ecosystem integrated survey,” said Franz Mueter from the University of Alaska, the lead scientist for the collaborative effort. “So it is a bit of a scientific dream team.”
Gathering data NOAA said that the primary purpose of the survey is the gathering of scientific data needed to avoid or mitigate the impacts on Arctic marine life of potential future oil and gas development projects. The scientific information collected will also help guide more general future economic development in the region, including possible transportation and fisheries opportunities.
Topics of particular interest include: the abundance of fish, shellfish and plankton; biological and environmental connections between the Bering and Chukchi seas; the densities, compositions and distributions of fish communities at different levels in the water column; the biology of various fish and other marine species that are sources of food for seabirds, sea mammals and coastal communities; physical and chemical water properties; and the comparison of fish population data between this survey and other surveys conducted in parts of the region.
Two cruises The first survey vessel to leave Dutch harbor will conduct a 60-day cruise traversing the southern Chukchi Sea, the northern Chukchi Sea and the northern Bering Sea, returning south in late September. The vessel will use a surface trawl net to sample fish and other organisms in the upper 65 feet of the water column. An acoustic system and mid-water trawl net will locate, characterize and measure fish populations at greater depths.
A second vessel, leaving Dutch Harbor a few days after the first vessel, will conduct a 47-day cruise in the northern and southern Chukchi Sea, using a bottom trawl net to count, measure and sample organisms that live on the seafloor.
“Although surveys have been conducted in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas since 1959, past U.S. fishery research in the Arctic has been infrequent and limited in scope,” NOAA said. “A similar comprehensive survey of the northern Bering Sea occurred for the first time in 2010.”
Hanna Shoal expedition The expedition to the Hanna Shoal area announced by BOEM will help identify and measure important physical and biological processes that contribute to the high concentration of marine life in this area, advancing BOEM’s understanding of environmental considerations such as food dynamics and potential contaminant accumulations — previous studies of the Hanna Shoal have documented sustained biological productivity at the seafloor, accompanied by high concentrations of water birds, walruses and whales, BOEM said.
The research comes as part of the Obama administration’s commitment to science-based resource management in the Arctic and will provide new scientific information for the implementation of the five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing program for 2012-17, BOEM said.
“We are taking a cautious approach to any future leasing in the Arctic and scheduled Alaska sales later in the five-year program to allow for the continued development of exactly this kind of scientific information,” said BOEM Director Tommy Beaudreau.
The Hanna Shoal project will continue to 2016 and will include the documenting of physical and oceanographic features; ice conditions; and information about wildlife species in the area. The project will require more than 30 sampling stations, some of which will overlap with stations used in previous research.
The research team comes from the University of Texas at Austin, Florida Institute of Technology, the University of Maryland, Old Dominion University and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks have previously conducted research in the same area with researchers from the University of Rhode Island and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, BOEM said.
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