Aug 10, 2023

In the Field: UW team to spend six weeks visiting deep-ocean observatory

The University of Washington’s large research vessel, the R/V Thomas G. Thompson, will embark Aug. 13 from Newport, Oregon. A team of dozens of UW students, researchers and engineers will visit sites hosting a unique, National Science Foundation-funded, underwater observatory. For almost six weeks the team will send a remotely operated vehicle, ROV Jason, to recover and deploy more than 100 instruments as far as 2 miles below the ocean’s surface, all connected to a cable that supplies power and internet connectivity.

Kendall Valentine

S1 E7: Tides that Bind with Randie Bundy

Together with #UWEnvironment researchers and educators, we venture from the mountains to the sea in Episodes 7 and 8 of our FieldSound Podcast. Episodes 7 of our FieldSound Podcast features Randie Bundy, a researcher with the University of Washington School of Oceanography. Her complex work looks into the cycling of trace metals in marine environments, how bioactive metals such as iron, copper, and cobalt are acquired by marine phytoplankton and bacteria, and how the organic forms of these metals affect their uptake and cycling in the ocean.

Warm liquid spewing from Oregon seafloor comes from Cascadia fault, could offer clues to earthquake hazards

Sonar image of bubbles rising from the sea floor.

The field of plate tectonics is not that old, and scientists continue to learn the details of earthquake-producing geologic faults. The Cascadia Subduction Zone — the eerily quiet offshore fault that threatens to unleash a magnitude-9 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest — still holds many mysteries. A study led by the University of Washington discovered seeps of warm, chemically distinct liquid shooting up from the seafloor about 50 miles off Newport, Oregon.

S1 E1: Ocean Acoustics with Shima Abadi and Rachel Aronson

Shima Abadi is Director of the Ocean Data Lab and an associate professor at the UW School of Oceanography. She also holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the Mechanical Engineering Program at UW Bothell’s School of Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM). Abadi’s intricate research primarily focuses on ocean acoustical signal processing, noise propagation in the ocean, machine learning in analyzing ocean ambient noise, and developing algorithms for analyzing large data sets collected by underwater networks.