Backgrounders

Thu, 2014-10-02 14:08

“Ocean Sense” and Community Observatories

Coastal communities are facing a wide range of rapid changes due to a changing environment. Lack of up to date scientific data limits community members in their ability to make informed decisions about their own coast. The University of Victoria’s Ocean Networks Canada offers a unique solution for bridging this gap in environmental monitoring, community involvement and scholastic outreach through the community observatory. To complement the expanding community observatory network, Ocean Networks Canada is introducing an educational program, “Ocean Sense: local observations, global connections” that will be piloted at Brentwood College School in Mill Bay, British Columbia, and Kiilinik High School in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut during the 2014-2015 school...

Tue, 2015-03-31 17:45

A Conversation with Dr. Ali Abdolali

March 2015

Q: What path led you to choose coastal and maritime engineering?

Ali: I have always had a passion for exploring such an unexplored part of planet earth: the mysterious oceans and seas. So, when I was admitted to university in Civil Engineering and then in Coastal Engineering, I felt quite satisfied with studying wave mechanics. As waves become larger like tsunamis, they are more catastrophic and devastating, and need to be investigated thoroughly! Looking along my path, it has been like a ladder, with the bottom rung being my interest in hydrodynamics, then stepping up to wave mechanics and tsunamis, with each step taking...

Fri, 2012-12-14 00:00

About Ocean Networks Canada

The 800-km NEPTUNE observatory and the nearly 50-km VENUS coastal observatory—which together make up the Ocean Networks Canada Observatory—stream live data from instruments at key sites off coastal BC via the Internet to scientists, policy-makers, educators and the public around the world.

Long-term observations by the Ocean Networks Canada will have wide-ranging policy applications in the areas of ocean and climate change, earthquakes and tsunamis, pollution, port security and shipping, resource development, sovereignty and security, and ocean management.

The VENUS coastal observatory is giving us a better understanding of vital water ways such as the Strait of Georgia and Fraser River delta. VENUS is currently...

Sun, 2013-12-01 11:16

Blue Whales

The blue whale is the largest animal known to have lived – larger than any dinosaur or currently living animal. It can grow up to 33 m long (27 m long in the northeast Pacific) and weigh up to 150,000 kg. Despite its large size, the blue whale feeds almost exclusively on krill. Blue whales in the northeast Pacific are thought to spend their summers feeding off the coast of the U.S. and Canada, and their winters in the tropical and subtropical waters off of Mexico and Central America. The presence of mother and calf pairs off the Gulf of California from December to March suggests that blue whales may breed and calve in the winter, though no breeding ground has been identified and their mating habits are not known. Their lifespan is also not known.

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Wed, 2012-12-12 00:00

Cambridge Bay Community Observatory Backgrounder

On 13 August 2012 the University of Victoria’s Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) was granted a research license from the Nunavut Research Institute, with approval from the Nunavut Impact Review Board, to install and maintain a small, cabled seafloor observatory for five years in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut. Installation was completed by the end of September 2012.

This community observatory, a scaled-down version of UVic’s seafloor networks, is the first location in Canada’s Arctic for year-round, continuous undersea monitoring of the northern environment. Its purpose is to offer science-based support for greater understanding and protection of fragile arctic marine ecosystems. Data streaming from the instruments support cutting-edge research as well...

Mon, 2012-10-15 00:00

Cascadia Subduction Zone

A subduction zone (Bebout et al., 1996) is an area where two plates are converging, with one plate moving beneath the other. As the down-going (subducting) plate moves deeper, it transports water into depth where it is heated and released. The heat from the mantle and core causes the surrounding rocks to melt and become fresh magma for volcanic eruptions. The down-going plate is recycled in the Earth’s mantle. At the Cascadia subduction zone the ocean crust of the Juan de Fuca plate is subducting beneath the continental crust of the North American plate. At subduction zones, there usually is an area where the two plates become locked. This means that they are not slipping past each other and frictional stress can build up, storing large amounts of energy. When this stress finally...

Mon, 2012-10-15 00:00

Coastal Upwelling

Upwelling is an important phenomenon that affects weather and ocean current patterns. In coastal regions, upwelling draws cold, nutrient-rich water upward to replace warm, sometimes nutrient-depleted surface waters that are blown offshore by wind. These cool, nutrient-rich waters often trigger blooms of phytoplankton, the primary producers in the world’s oceans. Whenphytoplankton grow and reproduce rapidly in the nutrientrich water, they can reach such high concentrations that their colour is visible in the water. Diatoms and dinoflagellates are phytoplankton typically responsible for large blooms off the coast of Vancouver Island.

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Thu, 2013-09-26 14:05

Coriolis Effect

The Coriolis Effect causes atmospheric and oceanic circulations to veer from linear (straight) trajectories and is due to the rotation of the Earth. The figure below shows the rotating Earth, and what would happen to a projectile that is “launched” from point P (North Pole) towards point A. As the projectile travels, the Earth rotates underneath it, and observers at any location on the Earth would claim that the projectile veered from a straight line.

From the North Pole, all directions are southward, and the projectile is seen to veer to the right (which is to west). From the...

Mon, 2012-10-15 00:00

CORKs

For over three decades, a fundemental goal for scientific ocean drilling has been to understand the role of the presence and flow of water in marine geologic formations on processes like heat loss from the earth, chemical exchange between the Earth’s oceans and crust, support of subseafloor microbiological ecosystems, and the creation of methane-hydrates and ore deposits. The quality of direct observations is commonly compromised by a simple problem: boreholes create hydrologic “short circuits” that allow open exchange of water between subseafloor formations and the ocean. The resulting perturbations severely limit the utility of temperature and pressure observations and of water samples taken during or shortly after drilling operations.

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Sat, 2013-04-27 00:00

CSI Salish Sea

This series of forensics experiments began in 2006 when Dr. Gail Anderson, a forensic entomologist from Simon Fraser University deployed the first pig carcass – a human body proxy - at 96m in Saanich Inlet. A subsea camera connected to the VENUS network was the main research instrument to monitor state of the carcass. Using the interactive capability of the networked subsea camera, Dr. Anderson conducted observations, took photos and recorded videos of the events, connecting to camera over the Internet from her home and office at Simon Fraser University as well as at various locations around Canada and the world. Initial results revealed that despite low oxygen conditions in the Saanich Inlet, a large number of crustacea removed the bulk of the soft tissue very rapidly. Captured...