A Lab Notebook

 
Boats and thoughts
Today, Liz instructed Donglai and I how to deploy a glider (an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle -AUV- buoyancy driven robots used to observe water properties and characteristics along a transect over a period of time ranging from days to weeks) from a boat in moderate seas. We deployed one of the COOL gliders from the RV Arabella off the coast of Tuckerton, NJ. As I am writing this, my desk feels as though it is still rocking back and forth ever so slightly. Both Donglai and I threw up once each. All in all, we were both stoked to finally see a glider launched, in person, after having heard about and studied the robots for a a few weeks. A few thoughts I needed to spit out about the paper I read earlier today (the actual paper notes are the previous post).
I think the last paragraph of the Kiørboe and Hansen [1993] paper gets towards the heart of my thesis. Basically, the coagulation models of Jackson [1990] and others rely on cell-cell stickiness. This however may severely underestimate overall coagulation and subsequent surface export flux if the colloidal or more loosely bound exudates allow for flocculation of materials that do not come into contact with cell. If this is the case, species with higher growth rates may hit more bloom/bust cycles more often than species with slower growth rates. If the the colloidal exudates are more readily released during the stationary phase, then the high growth rate species (although not necessarily as sticky during the growth phase) may actually cause a higher rate of export from the surface when compared to slower growth rate species. One of the goals of my thesis work is to try to decipher a) the origin of stickiness affecting particulates in the ocean and b) the relative importance of the different coagulation/flocculation mechanisms through models/experiments.
- posted by alex @ 17:56