Date: September 13, 2015 Time: 7:34pm PT
Location: Delta Dynamics Laboratory, Strait of Georgia, BC Canada
Hi I'm Katherine Silversides, I'm a STEM Educator with Science Venture which is out of the University of Victoria. Science Venture is a member of Actua which is an organization that connects STEM educators across Canada. Over the next three days I will be blogging about an amazing experience that Science Venture is getting to be part on board the E/V Nautilus.
Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is partnering with Ocean Exploration Trust (OET) to do maintenance work on the VENUS and NEPTUNE Observatories. The ship Ocean Exploration Trust uses is the E/V Nautilus. The E/V Nautilus is a dedicated exploration vessel (E/V), and has some of the latest technology on board including two Remotely Operated underwater Vehicles (ROV) named Argus and Hercules.
E/V Nautilus is currently over the Delta Dynamics Laboratory, located at 150 meters in depth on the VENUS network in the Strait of Georgia. Earlier in this expedition Ocean Networks Canada decided that the platform for this laboratory needed to be taken on land for repair. Today we are putting the repaired platform back in to the Strait of Georgia at the mouth of the Fraser river. This area is very interesting to study because of the amount of sediment carried into the Strait of Georgia by the Fraser River. The sediment load changes seasonally, daily with the tides, and due to rain and water runoff which all influence the outflow from the Fraser river. This is important to track because the outflow temporally changes the ocean chemistry in the Strait of Georgia.
I'm super excited to be on the Nautilus for the next few days and see all the amazingly interesting things we are working on!
