This Week in Photos: Research Cruise

Research ecologist Mary Anne Bishop and three research assistants from the Prince William Sound Science Center recently spent six days uploading data and maintaining the acoustic arrays that track tagged fish and animals at the main entrances to Prince William Sound. The red lines on this map represent the six different arrays that are made up of 49 underwater acoustic receivers. It’s all part of a decade long PWSSC project in partnership with the Ocean Tracking Network, headquartered at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which funds 49 acoustic receivers across major entrances into Prince William Sound. Prince William Sound Science Center photo
Research ecologist Mary Anne Bishop and three research assistants from the Prince William Sound Science Center recently spent six days uploading data and maintaining the acoustic arrays that track tagged fish and animals at the main entrances to Prince William Sound. The red lines on this map represent the six different arrays that are made up of 49 underwater acoustic receivers. It’s all part of a decade long PWSSC project in partnership with the Ocean Tracking Network, headquartered at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which funds 49 acoustic receivers across major entrances into Prince William Sound. Prince William Sound Science Center photo
Although some of the acoustic receivers have to be brought to the surface annually to upload the data, many are designed to be moored for five years or longer and researchers are able to upload the data via modem connection (surface to receiver). As the boat carrying PWSSC researchers hovers near the receiver the surface modem that is connected to the deck box/computer in the middle of this photo is lowered into the water below the keel of the boat. Depending on the number of fish detections, it takes anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour to transfer a year of data in this way.   Photo by Ben Gray/for Prince William Sound Science Center
Advertisement