Archived News - College of Marine Science - University of South Florida

ARCHIVED NEWS

2008

March 21, 2008: Three CMS doctoral students recently awarded the "Distinguished Graduate Achievement Award"
The CMS is proud to acknowledge Jennifer Dupont,, "Terry" Fei Fan Ng, and Christine Cass for their accomplishments as USF gradaute students which resulted in being chosen for this award. The USF Graduate & Professional Student Council hosted an award ceremony on March 7th to honor the award recipients. Dr. Pamela Hallock-Mueller accepted the awards on our students' behalf, because they were attending the 2008 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Orlando, FL.

Photo: Left to right - Jen Dupont, "Terry" Fei Fan Ng, and Christine Cass proudly displaying their awards.
March 11, 2008: SCUBAnauts watch space shuttle Endeavour launch their banner into space.
Jen Dupont and Julie Galkiewicz, USF CMS graduate students and science advisors to the group of teens who participate in the SCUBAnauts, veiwed the launch early Tuesday morning at Cape Canaveral, FL. Space is the final destination for the banner as part of "Operation Deep Climb".

Read the folowing articles for information about this milestone:

USF News article titled "SCUBAnauts Watch as Shuttle Carries Banner into Space"

St. Pete times article titled "Shuttle Endeavour begins milestone mission".

Photo courtesy of Lake Shore Camera Exchange
March 5, 2008: Dr. Bob Weisburg, USF, and Cindy Heil, FWRI, featured in nature.com - news article about red tide prediction. The March 5th article titled "Oceanography: Red tide rising" by Mark Schrope discusses the goals of the Center for Prediction of Red Tides, a $1.25-million collaborative effort between USF and the Florida Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI). View nature.com article.
February 26, 2008: USF College of Marine Science Faculty member - Dr. Luis Garcia-Rubio along with SRI -St.Petersburg Director, Larry Langebrake named within "10 faces" to watch in technology. The Feb 26, 2008 St. Petersburg Times article titled "Local tech scene given a fresh look" mentions the results of the florida.HIGH.TECH magazine feature "10 faces" to watch in technology. View St. Pete Times article.
February 25, 2008: SRI-St.Petersburg in the News.The St. Petersburg Times article on Feb 25, 2008 titled " He connects SRI's many pieces" by Kris Hundley, discusses the challenges ahead for Larry Langebrake, as director of recently formed SRI-St. Petersburg. The article gives mention to the USF College of Marine Science and the Center for Ocean Technology. View St. Pete Times article.
February 19, 2008: Two USF College of Marine Science students, Enrique Montes-Herrera and Digna Rueda-Roa, were awarded "Outstanding Student Presentations" at the Fall AGU meeting. There were 117 presentations at the 2007 Fall Meeting, and AGU made a total of eight awards. The awards will be publicized in an upcoming issue of EOS. We extend a hearty congratulations to these students for a fine acheivement!
January 18, 2008: USF, Mote create marine research partnership. The University of South Florida and the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota have worked together on Red Tide and other research projects over the years, but now the two want to formalize the relationship by forming a multimillion-dollar partnership. USF provost Ralph Wilcox said the collaboration will make the most of resources and brainpower."USF is just thrilled and elated at being aligned with such a world-class brand," Wilcox said Thursday.

The timing of the venture, however, is less than ideal. Mote Marine has pledged $4.5-million of its roughly $11-million research endowment to the project, but USF and Mote will ask the Legislature in coming weeks to budget another $6-million a year for it. They also are seeking $10-million in one-time money in the 2008-09 budget.

But legislators are bracing for painful cuts across the board, thanks to a tanking economy and resulting state revenue shortfalls.

"Like anyone else, we'll have to make a compelling case as to the benefits of this for the whole state," Wilcox said.

Under the proposal, USF and Mote will form a direct support organization that pairs Mote researchers with USF's marine science college, as well as its colleges of arts and sciences, engineering and public health.

As one entity, USF and Mote also can raise money and lobby for their research interests in Tallahassee.

-Report courtesy of the St. Petersburg Times

January 9, 2008: Former Dean to Head Downtown Group. Peter Betzer has been choosen as the new leader of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership. He takes over as president of the partnership, a group that advocates development on behalf of local businesses, on February 18. Click here to read theSt. Petersburg Times article .

2007

December 27, 2007: Marine Science Grad Students Make News. CMS students Kelley Anderson and Melanie Peters are featured in this story of a fresh water spring in danger of being destroyed by the Tampa Bay Rays’ plans for a new waterfront stadium on the site of Al Lang Field. Click here to view the Tampa Bay 10 News article .

November 21, 2007: Interim Dean Appointed. William T. Hogarth of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will spend the next two to three years as interim dean for the College of Marine Science, filling the post to be left vacant when longtime dean Peter Betzer retires in December. Click here to read theSt. Petersburg Times article .

November 14, 2007: College of Marine Science Honors Alumni, Outgoing Dean and Professors

Faculty and staff at the College of Marine Science will meet and greet distinguished alumni and say good-bye to retiring faculty, including one of the longest-serving administrators at the University of South Florida.

Peter Betzer, the outgoing dean of the College of Marine Science, said he looks back at his 36-year tenure with a lot of pride and satisfaction, after watching the marine science program grow from a department in the College of Arts and Sciences to its own internationally-recognized college.

“It’s been a long haul,” Betzer said. “We’ve seen the emergence of this complex on a national and international scale. There are over 1,200 people here. This is the largest marine science complex of the southeastern United States.”

Betzer became chairman for the Department of Marine Sciences in 1982. In 2000, he became the first dean of the College of Marine Sciences. He said he takes great pride in serving as an administrator of one of the most diverse marine science programs in the country.

"We have students from 18 countries and a greater proportion of Hispanic and African-American graduate students (17%) than any other marine science or earth science program in the United States," Betzer said.

The two-day CMS Reunion and Faculty Recognition event kicks off with an Alumni Social at the Pier Aquarium Nov. 15 and runs through the following day.

On Nov. 16, alumni and visitors will take a morning tour of the laboratories. After lunch, will be a College Update and Alumni Symposium in the Karen Steidenger Auditorium, followed by a Caribbean Dinner with live music on the peninsula.

About 16 notable alumni from the past 30 years are scheduled to appear at the symposium. Among them: Esther Peters (MS, 1978) Principal Scientist, Tetra Tech Inc., Fairfax, VA.; Brian Bendis (MS, 1999) AMJ Equipment, Tampa, FL; Watson Gregg (PhD, 1991) Senior Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD; Zhong-Ping Lee (PhD, 1994) Optical Oceanographer, Naval Research Lab, Stennis Space Center, MS; Bruce Barber (PhD, 1984) Marine Center Director, TERRA Environmental Services, Inc., St. Petersburg, FL; Matt Patterson (MS, 2000) South Florida Caribbean Network Coordinator, National Park Service, Palmetto Bay, FL; Lee Kump (PhD, 1986) Professor of Geosciences, Penn State University, University Park, PA; Mark Evans (MS, 1983) Senior Geologist, Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA; David Mallinson (PhD, 1995) Associate Professor, Geology Department, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC; Gregg Brooks (MS, 1981; PhD 1986) Professor of Marine Science, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, FL; Mark Hafen (PhD, 2001) Instructor, Department of Geography, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL; Jennifer Smith (PhD, 2006) Principal Scientist, Claro Scientific, LLC, St. Petersburg, FL; Beau Suthard (MS, 2005) CPE Consultants, St. Petersburg, FL; Mike Moyer (PhD, 1997) Dean, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Concordia University, Austin, TX; Sunny Jiang (PhD, 1997) Associate Professor, Dept, Civil & Environ. Engineering, University of California, Irvine; Jyotika Virmani (PhD, 2005) Florida COOS Consortium / Florida Institute of Oceanography.

Several retiring professors will be recognized. In addition to Betzer, other retiring professors include: Norm Blake, professor of Biological Oceanography; Gabe Vargo, associate professor of Biological Oceanography; and Ken Carder, professor of Physical Oceanography.

November 14, 2007: Predicting Red Tide is Focus of New Center

The University of South Florida and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s (FWC) Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (FWRI) announce the establishment of the Center for Prediction of Red Tides (CPR) at the University’s College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg. The center will develop, test and implement models to forecast Florida red tide conditions.

A five-year, $1.25 million contract from FWRI will help finance the center that will assist the state’s red tide monitoring program. USF is matching the state’s contribution with a $400,000 computer cluster along with staff support for the center.

Florida red tides are natural phenomena caused by a microscopic organism, Karenia brevis. K. brevis produces a toxin that can kill fish (see photo at right), birds and marine mammals, such as dolphins and manatees. It can also cause respiratory problems in people.

The factors contributing to red tide formation and persistence in Florida are extremely complex. Oceanic currents, nutrients, weather and interactions among numerous marine algae species contribute to bloom conditions.

CPR will combine information from multiple sources including FWRI red tide monitoring data; USF water circulation, temperature, salinity, and other data; satellite imagery; and models to develop forecasting capabilities for red tide conditions and impacts. Initially, water circulation models combined with red tide cell counts will yield short-term forecasts based on projections of particle movements. The initial forecast capabilities will be refined through ongoing research and development of coupled physical/biological models, with results eventually being incorporated into FWRI’s weekly red tide status reports. CPR researchers also use satellite imagery to identify areas of red tide blooms within Florida coastal waters, helping the state to better target monitoring efforts.

"For the first time, the Center for Prediction of Red Tides will pull together biological, chemical, and physical scientific expertise and couple it with advanced computing power to model the factors contributing to red tide formation across all appropriate spatial scales,” said Gil McRae, FWRI director.

The long-term goal of this collaborative partnership is to create a routine capability to predict Florida red tides and their potential impacts. In the future, biological models that address factors such as bloom growth, when coupled with the physical models and supported by additional data, will improve the predictability of bloom evolution from beginning to end.

“As a comprehensive research University within an urban setting, a USF goal is the application of science for the benefit of Florida’s citizens,” said Peter R. Betzer, dean of USF’s College of Marine Science. “CPR, is an important step in this process.

“The same CPR red tide prediction tools will find applications for fisheries, safe and efficient navigation, search and rescue, coastal inundation by storm surge and other ocean matters of urban societal concern,” Betzer said.

To learn more about FWRI’s red tide research program, visit http://research.MyFWC.com/redtide. USF’s Center for Prediction of Red Tides will soon launch a dedicated web site (http://cpr.marine.usf.edu) for information dissemination. Some initial data and model products are available at http://ocgweb.marine.usf.edu.

November 11, 2007: "Dean took plunge many times" USF's marine science college bloomed under Dr. Peter Betzer's charge. This St. Petersburg Times article highlights some of the early events in Dr. Peter Betzer's career here at the College of Marine Science. Click here to read.

November 8, 2007: "Red Tide blame points to Mississippi" A new NOAA study links the state's costly algae blooms with the river's pollutants. This St. Petersburg Times article mentions the work of CMS professor John Walsh and FMRI researcher/CMS alum Cindy Heil. Click here to read.

October 27, 2007: SRI in the News. Researchers win a Navy contract to develop a high-tech system to protect ports. This St. Petersburg Times article "Bay port joins terror fight" gives mention to the College of Marine Science, Center for Ocean Technology and the National Center for Maritime and Port Security. Click here to read.

October 22, 2007: CMS Assists Dive Students. The SCUBAnauts, Intl, a group of local 12-18 year old scientific diving students, embarked last week on a 10-day exploration of Hawaii. They were accompanied by scientists including Dr. Chris Moses (USF CMS post-doc), Dr. David Palandro (USF CMS graduate), and Jennifer Dupont (USF graduate student). The students explored the geological phenomena of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, learned about maritime archeology, dove with manta rays, climbed Mauna Kea, and partook in submersible expeditions in collaboration with NOAA and University of Hawaii scientists. Click here to view a short video.

Michael Martinez, Karyna Rosario, Warner Ithier-Guzman

October 5, 2007: Latino Student Awards. CMS graduate students Warner Ithier-Guzman, Michael Martinez, and Karyna Rosario receive the University of South Florida Successful Latino-Latina Student Award. These three outstanding CMS graduate students were among 10 students honored at the USF Hispanic Heritage Celebration in Tampa.

September 30, 2007: CMS professor quoted in article This St. Petersburg Times article "Shell Key unified in one sense" quotes Dr. Rober Weisberg. Click here to read.

2007 Endowed Fellowship winners with Dr. Peter Betzer

August 30, 2007: Endowed Fellowships Awarded

2006

April 18, 2006: "Texas research center works toward healthy Gulf" This Naples Daily News article describes work that is also supported by USF, Florida Institute of Oceanography and the U.S. Geological Survey. Click here to read.

April 17, 2006: USF Storm Surge Expert Serves on New Orleans Hurricane Panel. Robert Weisberg, physical oceanographer, storm surge expert and professor at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science, is serving on the “Committee on New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects,” a national group formed by The National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council. The committee, comprised of 14 members, has been charged with the responsibility of reviewing data, analyses and conclusions reached by the Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) with regard to Hurricane Katrina’s devastating blows to the storm protection systems in New Orleans. The committee, also charged with offering recommendations to the IPET initiative, recently released its first report, with two reports to follow by their reporting deadline in June, 2006.

“While the IPET is comprised of excellent scientists and engineers from both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and academia, and it is also being advised by a separate group formed by the American Society of Civil Engineers,” said Weisberg. “There is a need for a fully independent review team without preconception or allegiance, a role filled by the NRC panel.”

The committee’s report offers recommendations in three key areas: system-wide issues, geotechnical data and investigations, and hydrology and hurricane surge and wave analysis. It calls first upon IPET to evaluate levee breach sites and vulnerabilities in future storm events and advocates greater use of geographic information system (GIS) mapping techniques to gather data. Second, the report cites the need for an analysis of soil conditions along the levees to better understand soil properties when challenged by storm waters. Finally, the report speaks on the importance of applying accurate models to assess the Katrina storm surge and wave effects and to predict what the vulnerability of New Orleans may be for future storms.

Weisberg’s role on the panel is primarily aimed at issues related to hurricane storm surge.

The committee’s report notes that IPET has been “asked to perform several complicated, time-consuming and data-intensive tasks on a short time line” but makes recommendations for IPET and, as another hurricane season approaches, seeks to answer vital questions, such as: “What is the risk to New Orleans and vicinity from future storms? Did the exiting protection system fail because of poor construction or maintenance? Did it fail because design criteria were exceeded? Was the failure the result of a combination of these factors? What is the authorized level of protection?”

“Since the design of the hurricane protection system for New Orleans - or for any other threatened area - must begin with realistic levels of surge and waves from which protection is sought, it is important that the review process takes this into account,” explained Weisberg. “In other words, while the existing hurricane protection system in New Orleans was based on certain criteria, we need to ask if these criteria are adequate for the future. It’s one of the areas I am most concerned about.”

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

April 12, 2006: Oceans Day 2006: USF Students Seek More Respect and Kindness for Oceans, Coasts. Sponsored in part by the Florida Institute for Oceanography ( www.marine.usf.edu/fio/ ) and eagerly supported by students, staff and faculty at the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science (CMS), Oceans Day 2006, held in Tallahassee April 19, promises to highlight the plight of our oceans as well as celebrate their beauty and emphasize their importance as an irreplaceable resource.

“ This is the eighth year for this event,” said John Ogden, FIO director. “This year's event has special significance because of the release of the report of the Florida Oceans and Coastal Resource Council to the Florida legislature identifying research priorities for managing Florida 's oceans and coastal areas.”

The Florida Oceans and Coastal Resource Council, established by House Bill 1855 in the last legislative session, has developed priorities for ocean and coastal research and established a statewide ocean research plan now posted to www.dep.state.fl.us/oceanscouncil/ . The plan outlines the research priorities recommended to Governor Jeb Bush in February, 2006.

Historically, Oceans Day has been a day for impressing lawmakers with the importance of preserving the natural integrity of the oceans and taking positive steps to repair what has imperiled them, especially the harm done by neglect and abuse at the hands of humankind. The CMS delegation to Tallahassee will emphasize that action needs to be taken to alleviate the plight of the oceans. They will seek better integration of science and policy and emphasize the potential win-win results in terms of the Florida economy by doing so.

“As students and professionals in marine science, we are excited to have the opportunity to speak with legislators about the issues facing our oceans,” said Remy Luerssen, a research scientist in the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing at the CMS. “We will speak to legislators on issues of habitat loss, pollution, climate change and funding for research and environmental education.”

FIO will sponsor exhibits in the Capitol courtyard and rotunda Apr. 19 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and offer a special salute to the newly constituted Florida Oceans and Coastal Resource Council's 2006 research plan. Two friends of the oceans, “Officer Snook” and “Phin Dolphin,” pictured in the attachment, will help highlight the need for better marine resource management.

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

April 10, 2006: "3 Dimensions of Port Security" It doesn't take a trained eye to read the images. Anyone can read them from a boat, an office, almost anywhere, said Carol Steele, business development manager of the College of Marine Science's Center for Ocean Technology at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus in a Bradenton Herald article.

April 3, 2006: "Loss of Coastal Wetlands Exacts Hefty Price" Biological oceanography professor Dr. Frank Muller-Karger was quoted in a Palm Beach Post article.
March 31, 2006: "Research in Pacific Shows Ccean Trouble" Researchers from California State University-San Marcos and the University of South Florida towed nets behind the vessel to catch plankton, which they then subjected to acidic conditions on par with what might be experienced in the future. Click here to read the Seattle Post Intelligencer report.
March 29, 2006: CMS Researcher on the Radio. University of South Florida College of Marine Science hurricane researcher Jyotika Virmani blames the last two hurricane seasons on elevated surface sea temperatures. Click here to read and hear the WUSF 89.7FM report.
March 24, 2006: CMS Professor Quoted in Global Warming Article. Geological oceanography professor Dr. Albert Hine was attributed in a Tampa Tribune article on the effects rising sea levels would have on Florida's coast line.
March 23, 2006: USF Hurricane Researchers: 2004-2005 Seasons “Odd, But Explainable”. Were the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons all that odd? Can they be explained? Robert Weisberg, a University of South Florida College of Marine Science hurricane expert, and his colleague, Jyotika Virmani, concluded that when a record number of hurricanes lashed the Gulf coasts in 2004-2005 we were reaping what elevated surface sea temperatures (SSTs) sewed.
"It’s happened before", said co- Weisberg and Virmani, who co-authored a paper recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (Vol.33 No.5) examining the 2005 hurricane season.

“The 2004 and early 2005 hurricane seasons were connected,” said Weisberg, a physical oceanographer who also serves on the Committee on New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects established by the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council.

“The unusually warm SSTs that developed in the Atlantic Ocean in the fall of 2004 did not decrease as much as usual in winter, so SSTs were higher than normal in the spring of 2005.”

According to Virmani and Weisberg, a hurricane season tends to lower SSTs, but the unusual condition in 2004 favored earlier developing and more intense hurricanes for 2005.

“Unusually warm SSTs have occurred before, and rather recently, giving us very active hurricane seasons in 1958, 1969, 1980, 1995 and 1998,” explained Virmani.

What accounted for the cataclysmic 2005 hurricane season?

According to Weisberg and Virmani, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO), a large-scale temperature cycle in the north Atlantic, and an increasing temperature trend by global warming, may have been co-factors. However, these factors alone were not the sole contributors.

“Hurricane frequency is generally greater when the AMO is in its positive stage,” said Weisberg. “Over the last 120 years, the AMO has fluctuated, but has been in a positive phase since the mid-1990s. When a positive phase AMO combines with abnormally high SSTs, a record season results.”

How did the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons compare with past seasons?

“The 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons were not unique over the last 50 years,” explained Weisberg. “Nine of the last 11 hurricane seasons show above average activity, but it is interesting to note that less than two percent of intense hurricanes occur in June and July. Last year we had two major hurricanes before August.”

The most unusual aspect of the 2004-2005 seasons, concluded Weisberg and Virami, were the unusually high SSTs.

“Hurricanes and the subsequent winter months usually adjust SSTs back toward normal. That just didn’t happen after the 2004 season,” Weisberg said.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

March 23, 2006: “Big Brother” peers into black drum bedrooms. A team of scientists from the University of South Florida College of Marine Science (CMS) recently deployed unique instrumentation to first locate sound producing black drum fish that raise a loud chorus when they spawn and then determine if the sound production was matched by real results – tight clusters of newly fertilized fish eggs.

“Sound production by black drum serves as proxy for spawning,” said marine biologist Jim Locascio. “We want to see if it is possible to find out how much sound production from the black drum equals how much egg production .”

Locascio teamed with chemist and environmental scientist Eric Steimle, who developed a radio-controlled guided surface vehicle (GSV). For the deployment, Steimle’s GSV carried a DIDSON imagining sonar and a hydrophone listening device to eavesdrop on the spawning sounds of black drum. To compliment data collected by the DIDSON, USF Center for Ocean Technology engineer Bill Flanery contributed SIPPER, an imaging sensor mounted underneath the GSV. SIPPER was installed to digitally image and count small particles in the water - from seaweed to plankton - as the GSV -criss-crossed the football field-sized canal area. They hoped that SIPPER would discover clusters of newly fertilized fish eggs in the singing locations.

“The DIDSON creates images from sound and provides near video-like quality,” explained Locascio. “We used DIDSON as a high resolution fish finder to image the spawning fish and then have SIPPER image and count the eggs being produced.”

Their previous research used only hydrophones to locate the sound producing fishes, but this research attempted to image the adults and newly spawned eggs, giving a comprehensive look into the activity and production of the spawning population.

To test the unique system, the team traveled in mid-March to black drum spawning grounds in the canal system of Cape Coral, Florida, near Charlotte Harbor. The canal system is in the back yards of residential areas where Locascio and colleagues in 2005 were called in by residents to help explain odd noises from the canal, sounds so loud and spooky that residents were left unnerved. CMS researchers subsequently identified the sound as black drum males crooning love songs during spawning. The canal system is not far from an area near where CMS researchers recorded fish raising a chorus when Hurricane Charley rolled over the same waters in 2004.

“All systems operated well and we’re analyzing the data,” reported Locascio after the test.

Locascio and plankton biologist Andrew Remsen, who are analyzing the images collected by SIPPER, want to determine if the sounds picked up by the hydrophones are concurrent with the number of eggs seen in the SIPPER images. To do so, they are looking at tens of thousands of digital pictures that are cross-referenced to exact locations in the area that SIPPER and DIDSON, riding under the GSV, surveyed together in real-time.

SIPPER can image and identify objects down to 1/4 of a millimeter and image subjects as small as a human hair while viewing 15 liters of water every second.

According to Flanery, an early concern was that riding just beneath the surface SIPPER would be imaging a lot of bubbles and that it might not be able to easily tell the difference between bubbles and fish eggs.

“We were pleasantly surprised to find that the images were easily distinguishable because SIPPER’s recognition software was able to sort the images,” said Flanery.

This was the first field assignment for SIPPER and DIDSON to jointly ride as GSV passengers and explore the relationship between male fish spawning sounds and the discovery of newly fertilized eggs. It was also the first deployment of the third version of SIPPER, SIPPER3.

“Eric’s vehicle never carried so much weight at one time, but it performed magnificently,” said Locascio. “SIPPER also set new achievement levels.”

Spawning season in the area is drawing to a close, so the research team is checking their data a fine-tuning the equipment for bigger experiments when the encore begins.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

March 22, 2006: CMS Professor Authors OP-ED Piece. Biological oceanography professor Dr. Frank Muller-Karger wrote the commentary, "The health of our nation's coasts and oceans remains in jeopardy" for the Sarasota HeraldTribune which appeared in today's edition. Click here to read.

March 14, 2006: USF Researching Port Security. The Center for Ocean Technology's work on port security is featured in an article in the Sarasota HeraldTribune. Click here to read.

March 2, 2006: Hurricane Expert Speaks at USF College of Marine Science. As part of the College of Marine Science's 2006 “Eminent Scholars Lecture Series,” noted hurricane researcher Hugh Willoughby, formerly with the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration (NOAA) as research meteorologist and now with the International Hurricane Center, Florida International University, lectured Mar. 2 on “Hurricanes in the 21st Century.” Willoughby first sketched out the dynamics of hurricane behavior in the 20th century and made this prediction for the future: for the next 10 to 20 years, expect more big and destructive hurricanes.

“Each season will have crescendos, peaking in August and capped with a wild September,” he predicted. “I just hope that next year we will not be wrapping Christmas presents at the same time we are putting up the hurricane shutters.”

Willoughby, who worked at NOAA from 1975 to 2002 and made over 400 reconnaissance flights into the eyes of hurricanes and typhoons, noted that the spate of destructive storms in the 21st century is not as curious as the lack of them from 1970 to 2003. He added that during what he called a serious hurricane “respite” coastal development and populations grew considerably, adding to the threat to life and property.

“That respite was unprecedented,” said Willoughby, mapping out 27 catastrophic hurricanes in 106 seasons from 1896 to 2002. He defined as ‘catastrophic' a storm causing more than 100 deaths and costing over nine billion dollars in damage.

He noted that hurricane seasons seemed to put different geographical areas in the cross hairs, that hurricanes were bad for the Carolinas in the 1990s and bad for the Gulf Coast in 2004-2005.

“But it might all come down to good luck and bad luck” he suggested. “However, landfall points tend to clump.”

When cost-adjusted for inflation, the damage of hurricanes in the early 20th century, such as the 1928 Miami hurricane, he said that the average cost of serious hurricanes was constant - at about $5 billion annually. Loss of life has gone down, however, with Hurricane Katrina the recent exception.

“In 2005, the nightmare scenario came to pass,” he concluded. “When Hurricane Katrina was identified as a category 3 hurricane, many people on the Mississippi coast who had survived Camille, a category 5, thought they could weather Katrina. But it was the massive storm surge that made the difference. Perhaps we need a way to categorize surge. Surge can not be equated with storm category.”

He compared Katrina to the 1928 hurricane that caused Lake Okeechobee to breach its levies. Subsequent flooding killed many hundreds, most of whom he described as ‘economically disadvantaged.' Loss of life with Katrina was the greatest in the U.S. since the 1928 Miami hurricane, he added.

Does global warming have an effect on hurricane formation or intensity?

Willoughby generally dismissed global warming as a cause for the increase in recent big hurricanes, suggesting that a lack of shear (a high-altitude change in wind speed or direction) in the atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico and the hurricanes' interaction with the “loop current” in the Gulf were largely responsible for the spate of recent destructive storms and directing them toward their targets.

“Shear is poison to hurricanes,” said Willoughby, adding that the loop current guided the storms toward populated areas on the Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coasts during the 2005 hurricane season. “Global warming may have some effect, but it's not the main thing happening.”

Willoughby's lecture was the concluding lecture in the 2006 event. Other lecturers included Simon Jennings, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Suffolk, UK, Harry Roberts of the Coastal Studies Institute and Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University and Thomas Bianchi of the Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

March 1, 2006: CMS Professor Co-Authors OP-ED Piece. Biological oceanography professor, Dr. Frank Muller-Karger, co-wrote the commentary, "Catch Limits Must Be Hooked On Science" for the Tampa Tribune which appeared in today's edition.

February 24, 2005: A COPY OF COT's QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER “SIGNALS” IS NOW AVAILABLE. Click here to view.
February 17, 2006: CMS Professor Quoted in Offshore Drilling Article. Physical oceanography professor, Dr. Robert H. Weisberg, was featured in a Lakeland Ledger article on the effects of off shore oil drilling off Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. Click here to read the article.
February 20, 2006: Elusive Beaked Whale Hearing Measured. Publishing recently in the Journal of Comparative Physiology, Mandy L.H. Cook and David Mann, from the University of South Florida College of Marine Science, and colleagues at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution, investigated the issue of whether sonar can be correlated with the stranding of beaked whales, as some reports have claimed.

“Several mass strandings of beaked whales have been correlated with military exercises involving mid-frequency sonar, yet there are unknowns about their hearing sensitivities,” said Cook. “Because it has been hypothesized that some strandings are sonar-induced, our study measured hearing abilities of a beaked whale by measuring auditory evoked potentials (AEP), used commonly to measure hearing in human infants, birds, fish and other animals. We wanted to see if they had particular auditory sensitivity to mid-range sonar in wide use by the U.S. Navy and others.”

In July, 2004, when a young male beaked whale in poor health stranded near St. Lucie Inlet on the east coast of Florida, it came under the care of Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution. The event afforded marine biologist Cook and colleagues to test its hearing by measuring its response to auditory signals of varying frequencies.

“A live stranding of a beaked whale is a relatively rare event, and this was an opportunity to learn about the hearing abilities of this little-known group of whales,” explained Cook. “We found that the hearing of beaked whales was similar to other echolocating dolphins and whales.”

According to Cook, beaked whales are capable of detecting sounds between five and 80 kHz, which is in the range of frequencies used for echolocation. The highest frequency humans can hear is 20 kHz. The U.S. Navy’s mid-frequency tactical sonars operate between 2.6 and 8.2 kHz.

“Our measurements did not support the hypothesis that beaked whales have a particularly high auditory sensitivity at the frequencies used in mid-range sonar,” concluded Cook. “However, these data are important for understanding the range over which beaked whales can detect mid-frequency sonar.”

February 17, 2006: Dr. Renu Khator, Provost of the University of South Florida, appointed a search committee for the next Dean of the College of Marine Science. The 12-person committee is chaired by Dr. Donna Peterson, Dean of the College of Public Health.

February 13, 2006: USF St. Petersburg Campus Board Member Writes Article. Gus Stavros, a member of the USF St Petersburg Campus Board and Trustee Emeritus of the USF Foundation Board, has written, "A dream is realized in St. Petersburg", which appears on the Opinion page of the St. Petersburg Times. Click here to read the article.

February 12, 2006: CMS Students Write Article on U.S. Ocean Policy. College of Marine Science students Jennifer Dupont and Camille Daniels are the authors of an article on the state of the federal government's ocean policies. "It's sink or swim time for U.S. ocean policy" appears in the Perspective section of the St. Petersburg Times. Click here to read the article.

February 11, 2006: CMS Professor Quoted in Ocean Research Funding Gap Article. Dr. Frank Muller-Karger, who served on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, is quoted in a Sarasota HeraldTribune article on the 2007 budget proposal for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Click here to read the article.

February 3, 2006: CMS Professor Named to Joint Oceanographic Institutions Program Directorship. WASHINGTON The Joint Oceanographic Institutions (JOI), a consortium of leading U.S. oceanography research institutions, today announced that it has named Dr. Kendra Daly as the director of the Ocean Research Interactive Observatory Networks (ORION) Program and Stuart Williams is JOI's new director of Ocean Observing. Bill Ball also joins JOI as the new director of the Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel (SODV) Conversion program, taking over for Williams who has held the post since September 2004.

In her new role as ORION Project Office director, Dr. Daly will facilitate the planning of the new global network of sensor systems that will give scientists the ability to continuously gather a wide array of detailed measurements over broad areas of the world¹s oceans and the sea floor, over long periods of time and without ever leaving land.

Dr. Daly comes to JOI from the University of South Florida, where she has been a professor in the College of Marine Science since 2001. From 1997-2001, she worked as an associate program director in the Biological Oceanography Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF).

Stuart Williams is now the project manager responsible for the development work in preparation for designing and building the hardware for the ORION Program. Mr. Williams says his goal is, "to make sure management of the design, construction and delivery of the observatories¹ equipment gets planned in a way that is responsive to the science community¹s needs."

Mr. Williams feels his experience as former deputy program manager for NOAA¹s Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) has given him a strong foundation for directing the development of the new ocean observing facilities. For the AWIPS, Williams successfully delivered the $550 million acquisition of the system that collects and processes weather data that is then displayed on local meteorologists' computers as they prepare forecasts.

Dr. Steven R. Bohlen, president of Joint Oceanographic Institutions, will oversee the ORION Project Office as he works closely with both Dr. Daly and Mr. Williams. NSF supports the ORION Program.

Bill Ball recently joined JOI to manage the Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel program. As director of the program, Ball now leads JOI¹s efforts to manage the process that will transform the JOIDES Resolution, the pioneering vessel that has retrieved samples of the Earth's crust and sediments from deep beneath the ocean, into a state-of-the-art research ship and the U.S. contribution to the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP).

Mr. Ball has 35 years of experience in ship design and acquisition management. He designed numerous ships for the U.S. Navy including a glass reinforced plastic mine hunter. Ball then turned his talents to managing the acquisition of new research vessels for the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) before leaving the government to join a naval architecture firm where he managed the technical and program management support for a $4 billion navy ship acquisition program.

In December 2005, an NSF-approved contract selecting the JOIDES Resolution as the SODV was signed between Overseas Drilling Limited, the provider of the vessel, and Texas A&M University Research Foundation, science operator and member of the JOI Alliance, after open competition.

JOI President Bohlen remarked, "I'm extremely pleased to have three such talented, knowledgeable and uniquely qualified professionals joining JOI's leadership team at this time. Ocean observing is bold new territory for JOI, and the new drill ship will usher in an exciting new phase of discovery. Kendra, Stu and Bill's leadership will be integral to success in these efforts."

February 3, 2006: Research Conducted at CMS Could Lure Lab to St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg Times reports that USF is negotiating with SRI International to put a new high technology research facility next door to USF St. Petersburg.

Click here to read the February 3 article.
Click here to read the February 4 article.

January 26, 2006: CMS Professor Appointed to Hurricane Recovery Project. Dr. Robert Weisberg was appointed a member of National Academies, National Research Council "Committee on New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects." The committee will provide independent evaluation on reports being prepared by an Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) headed by the US Army COE and by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The committee held its first meeting in New Orleans during January 17-19. The next meeting is scheduled for March 20-21, and a final meeting will be held in June.

January 23, 2006: USF Aids in Developing Underwater Detection Device. Ensuring the security of the nation's ports and harbors poses a tricky challenge in part because of the difficulty in identifying underwater threats.
Marine technology company CodaOctopus of New York and the Center for Ocean Technology at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg think they may have a solution. Backed with funding from the Navy, the USF center has developed a "mobile inspection package" using technology developed by CodaOctopus to assist in identifying potential hazards that are difficult to see via conventional underwater cameras.

The package includes a GPS-aided navigational system and a three-dimensional sonar device called the Echoscope the company says can be used to see in murky, zero-visibility waters.

CodaOctopus strategic development executive Angus Lugsdin says the Echoscope can be mounted on a pole attached to a boat or on a remotely operated underwater robot. The product is being evaluated for use by the Navy and the Coast Guard, he said, adding that the mobile inspection package developed by USF is expected to be commercially available in about six months.
- Special thanks to the St. Petersburg Times and Louis Hau, Times staff writer.

January 13, 2006: CMS Kicks Off 2006 Friday Seminars. The first Friday afternoon seminar of 2006 invited Daniel Yeh, assistant professor in the USF College of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who spoke on contaminated sediment remediation. Yeh, who is also an advisor to the Dr. Kiran C. Patel Center for Global Solutions, launched in May, 2005, discussed various ways that contaminated marine sediments can be handled.

Dr. Daniel Yeh

“Contaminated sediments are a serious problem,” said Yeh, noting that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that at least seven percent of U.S. waterways, including harbors, the Great Lakes, rivers and shipping lanes are contaminated with a variety of toxins, including heavy metals (such as mercury), PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), DDT and petroleum byproducts. These materials are generally physically and chemically stable and do not break down easily in the sediment environment.

“Those contaminants can be dug up, but dredging might make matters worse by spreading the sediment contaminated,” he said. “Contaminants may linger for decades and pose a threat to the biota and the food chain – so what do we do with them?”

Yeh, who also researches methods for producing clean water through inexpensive filtration processes, suggested three methods for dealing with contaminated sediments – dredging followed by confining, treatment and disposal, capping with a barrier layer to minimize risk, and accelerated natural attenuation by using microbes to break down the contaminants chemically. Each method, he noted, has pluses and minuses.

Yeh focused on hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and ways to speed up natural attenuation in sediments contaminated with HCB by adding food-grade “surfactants” – surface active agents – to enhance the solubility of HCB to improve their availability to microbes that can degrade them. Citing his doctoral research on a site near Lake Charles, Louisiana, Yeh described a biochemical de-chlorination pathway though which anaerobic microorganisms biotransform and reduce the toxicity of HCB.

He described a process of altering dredged material by drying and milling it and then adding surfactants. Tests demonstrated that the surfactants speeded up the process of contaminant removal from the dried, milled material.

Yeh suggested that the drying and milling process fractured the particles in the sediment, leaving them more vulnerable to the surfactant for clean up.

He concluded his talk by reviewing the feasibility of establishing treatment facilities that could treat contaminated marine sediments.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore
January 26, 2006: CMS Professor Appointed to Hurricane Recovery Project. Dr. Robert Weisberg was appointed a member of National Academies, National Research Council "Committee on New Orleans Regional Hurricane Protection Projects." The committee will provide independent evaluation on reports being prepared by an Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force (IPET) headed by the US Army COE and by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The committee held its first meeting in New Orleans during January 17-19. The next meeting is scheduled for March 20-21, and a final meeting will be held in June.

January 23, 2006: USF Aids in Developing Underwater Detection Device. Ensuring the security of the nation's ports and harbors poses a tricky challenge in part because of the difficulty in identifying underwater threats.
Marine technology company CodaOctopus of New York and the Center for Ocean Technology at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg think they may have a solution. Backed with funding from the Navy, the USF center has developed a "mobile inspection package" using technology developed by CodaOctopus to assist in identifying potential hazards that are difficult to see via conventional underwater cameras.

The package includes a GPS-aided navigational system and a three-dimensional sonar device called the Echoscope the company says can be used to see in murky, zero-visibility waters.

CodaOctopus strategic development executive Angus Lugsdin says the Echoscope can be mounted on a pole attached to a boat or on a remotely operated underwater robot. The product is being evaluated for use by the Navy and the Coast Guard, he said, adding that the mobile inspection package developed by USF is expected to be commercially available in about six months.
- Special thanks to the St. Petersburg Times and Louis Hau, Times staff writer.

2005

December 12, 2005: CMS Researcher in the News. Dr. David Mann, USF Sensory Biologist was interviewed by LiveScience.com about the ability of manatees to hear under water. Click here to read the article.

December 1, 2005: CMS Researcher in the News. Dr. Chuanmin Hu, USF Satellite Oceanographer was interviewed by theNaples Daily News about the lingering Red Tide bloom off the southwest coast of Florida. Click here to read the article.

November 23, 2005: Can you near me now?: USF researchers test manatee hearing.

Photo credit: USGS-Sirenia Project

Publishing in a recent issue of the Journal of Comparative Physiology , University of South Florida College of Marine Science professor David Mann, along with his students and colleagues Gordon Bauer from New College, Roger Reep from the University of Florida, and Debborah Colbert and Joseph Gaspard from Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, examined the hearing of manatees to determine the frequencies to which they best respond.

�Florida manatees, an endangered species, are often injured or killed by boat strikes,� said Mann. �The ability of manatees to hear and localize boat sounds is important for their survival. We wanted to find out how well they can hear and process sounds in an aquatic environment that conducts sound five times faster than sounds are conducted through the air.�

There are an estimated 3,500 manatees living in Florida waters. An average of between 70 to 80 manatees are killed by boats every year. Little is known about manatee hearing ability, but researchers knew that how well manatees can hear and avoid approaching boats is an important issue in manatee survival. Manatees' ability to avoid approaching boats, scientists theorized, may depend on how well they are able to localize sounds from approaching boats.

Borrowing a technique used to screen for deafness in newborns, researchers measured the �auditory evoked potentials� (AEPs) of Mote Marine Laboratory's resident manatees to various frequencies to determine the range of manatee hearing abilities. One key aspect of this research was measuring how fast the manatee auditory system could respond to changes in a sound.

�We found that the manatees were able to follow signals changing at rates up to 1,400 cycles per second (Hz), with peaks in their response at 150 and 600 Hz. This is remarkably ten times faster than that of humans (50 Hz) but only half that of dolphins (1200 Hz),� explained Mann. �This rapid temporal processing could be an adaptation for localizing sounds underwater.�

Researchers are currently studying the ability of these manatees to localize sounds underwater by training them to swim to underwater loudspeakers broadcasting sound.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore
To see a Discovery Channel interview with Dr. Mann about manatee hearing, Click here.

November 14, 2005: CMS professor featured in offshore drilling article. Physical oceanography professor, Dr. Robert H. Weisberg, was featured in front-page St. Petersburg Times article on the effects of off shore oil drilling off Florida in the Gulf of Mexico. Click here to read the article.
November 13, 2005: CMS professor quoted on student project. Biological oceanography professor, Dr. Frank Muller-Karger, was quoted in a St. Petersburg Times article on the imaginative use of a computer program by an Admiral Farragut Academy sixth-grader. Click here to read the article.
October 31, 2005: Hurricane work featured in newspaper article. The St. Petersburg Times featured the work on hurricane storm surge by Dr. Robert H. Weisberg, Professor in the College of Marine Science. Dr Weisberg and his group have been doing pioneering work on storm-surge modeling indicating that many of the bay area bridges could be rendered impassable by a Category #4 storm passing over Indian Rocks Beach moving from west to east. This work has critically important implications for the 3 million people that live around Tampa Bay and for the disaster preparedness people planning for post-storm responses. Click here to read the article.
October 28, 2005: THE CENTER FOR OCEAN TECHNOLOGY WILL BE HOSTING THEIR ANNUAL OKTOBERFEST. "Come take a tour of the USF Center for Ocean Technology and see for yourself the exciting technology being developed. Then have a drink and a bite to eat with us." 11:30-am till 1:30pm. Contact Antoinette Flournoy at (727)553-1009 for more information.
September 18, 2005: CMS Researcher writes Op-Ed for area newspaper. Dr. Frank Müller-Karger, professor of biological oceanography at the College of Marine Science, and a member of the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy wrote an editoral that appeared in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Click here to read the editoral.

September 16, 2005: USF College of Marine Science Hosts Iinternational Forum on Mass Spectrometry. ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - The University of South Florida College of Marine Science hosts the 5th Harsh-Environment Mass Spectrometry Workshop Sept. 20-23 at Lido Beach in Sarasota. Attending will be an array of international researchers who develop ever-smaller and more efficient mass spectrometry (MS) technologies to help detect dangerous gasses and other compounds in harsh environments such as outer space, the ocean, volcanoes and battlefields.
International participants include scientists from Russia, Germany, the United Kingdom and Costa Rica. Scientists from American institutions and research facilities, such as the Goddard Space Flight Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Westinghouse Savannah River Company, Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Purdue Univesrity, the University of Hawaii and the California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will also attend.

According to Tim Short, an engineer with the USF Center for Ocean Technology, the goal of the workshop is to engage the participants and stimulate thinking about both current developments and future needs in these rapidly developing areas.

�Participants will share their work on building miniature, rugged and efficient MS equipment for application in harsh environments,� said Short.

A scientist from the NASA/ Goddard Space Flight Center research group will discuss the design and analysis capabilities of the MS equipment sent on the seven year Cassini Orbiter mission that entered and analyzed the nitrogen and methane filled atmosphere of Titan, one of Saturn�s 34 moons. A joint team from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Goddard Space Flight Center will present research related to developing MS instrumentation for studying astrobiology on future space missions. Danish researchers will discuss online monitoring of drinking water supplies and groundwater.

Scientists from the A.F. Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg, Russia, the MIT, University of Hawaii and USF will present methods for deploying underwater mass spectrometers in lakes and oceans. Mapping volcanic activity and the direct impact of these plumes on urban areas throughout Costa Rica will be presented by Costa Rican and Kennedy Space Center scientists. A researcher from the Engineer Research and Development Center will be presenting novel MS technologies for long term on-site environmental monitoring of chemical warfare agents. For more information, visit the workshop web site.

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

September 16, 2005: CMS Researcher in the News. Dr. Chuanmin Hu, USF Satellite Oceanographer was interviewed by Tampa Bay's 10 News about the affect of Hurricane Katrina's cleanup on marine life in the bay area. Read the article and view the news segment.

September 14, 2005: USF scientists find Mississippi river in Atlantic Ocean. Using satellite imagery, University of South Florida scientists have found that at least 23 percent of the water released from the mouth of the Mississippi River from July through September 2004 traveled into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida Keys and into the Atlantic Ocean. The study was published in the July 2005 issue of Geophysical Research Letters.

"This is the first time we have been able to estimate the amount or volume of freshwater discharged and carried over such remote distances," said Chuanmin Hu of the Institute for Marine Remote Sensing (IMaRS) at the College of Marine Science and lead author of the study. "By combining the very detailed data from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) with observations from ships, we were afforded a three-dimensional view of the Mississippi plume."

To study a dark plume that stretched from the Mississippi Delta, around Florida and up the Georgia coast, researchers combined data from MODIS aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites with information collected from ships

This image, using data from MODIS, flying aboard NASA's Terra satellite, shows blackwater off the coast of southwest Florida in February 2002. Credit: University of South Florida

MODIS detects the color of the ocean due to changes in the amount of tiny ocean plants floating on the ocean's surface known as phytoplankton, or algae and other decaying materials. By using MODIS data combined with information on sea surface currents and sea salt levels (salinity), scientists estimated that about 20 billion tons of Mississippi River water reached the Florida Straits and Gulf Stream off the Georgia coast, demonstrating that plumes created by the Mississippi River travel over large distances - in this case more than 1,240 miles (2,000 kilometers).

According to Hu, after the Mississippi River water travels such a long distance, the substances in the plume are diluted - by 50 to 100 times -with ocean water.

"The nutrients it carries are nearly used up by algae, therefore won't provide much additional food to the toxic red tides near the coast," he said. "However, little is known about the fate and impact of the pollutants in the plume."

Hu said that the polluted water near the Mississippi Delta after Hurricane Katrina resulting from the severe flooding and water pumping may eventually get diluted and meander to the Florida's coast. The effect will need close attention.

"Mississippi River water may have some impact on marine life in remote delicate ecosystems like the Florida Keys. But we are still not clear about the potential impacts of pollutants and pesticides," said Hu. "Not all effects will be bad; in fact, some light dark water events might actually protect bottom ocean dwellers, like coral, by providing them with shade."

Researchers continue to use satellite information, observations from ships and "ocean surface drifters" - instruments resembling balloons that travel the ocean surface to get a better idea of how these plumes affect marine life.

The research was carried out with the support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Office of Naval Research as a contribution to the South East Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing System (SEACOOS). Coauthors include oceanographers James Nelson from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography, Elizabeth Johns from NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and Zhiqiang Chen, Robert Weisberg, and Frank Muller-Karger from the University of South Florida.

For more information and images about this story on the Internet, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/mississippi.html

For more information about NASA and agency programs on the Internet, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

Loading truck with Hurricane relief donations

Photos by Chad Edmisten

September 14, 2005: Katrina Relief: USFCMS and FWRI personnel load food, equipment and supplies destined for the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Mote Marine Laboratory initiated this relief effort by renting the truck and donating relief goods. Dr. Patrick Biber of GCRL drove the truck from Mote to USF St. Petersburg and then to FSU and Florida A&M before returning to GCRL.

August 31, 2005: USF College of Marine Science students get national recognition and grant awards.

2005 Endowed Fellowship Recipients

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - The University of South Florida College of Marine Science held its annual �Endowed Fellowship Award Ceremony� Aug. 31 honoring this year's 17 graduate student recipients of a number of prestigious awards of support totaling $173,000.
Peter Betzer, dean of the college, noted that this year's award ceremony was the 23 rd such ceremony and that over 23 years 202 CMS students have received over $2 million in fellowships from private, corporate and civic donors.

In attendance was James Hicks, program manager for the National Science Foundation�s �Bridge to Doctorate� program. Through participation in the Bridge to the Doctorate program, USF recruits and NSF funds minority graduate students in science and engineering for up to $30,000 per year for two years. The USF program is one of only 18 in the nation. NSF program partners such as USF arrange total support for students following the initial two years of student participation in the Bridge to Doctorate program.

National Science Foundation Program Manager James Hicks

�NSF is proud to be in partnership with USF and the Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Appreciation,� said Hicks. �It is our delight to be in partnership with USF and the reason for coming to the ceremony this week is to make that delight clear. The program is of benefit to the nation, the state of Florida and to the students.�

Hicks said that to date there were nationally 330 graduate students funded in their studies in science or engineering through the Bridge to the Doctorate program. He called the USF�s participation a �model effort� for the program and invited Dean Betzer to Washington, D.C. to speak on USF�s successful efforts.

Ralph Turner, Peter Betzer and James Hicks

Also attending was Ralph Turner, director, and Byron Greene, project manager, of the Florida-Georgia Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation - another USF partner for minority science student recruitment.

Betzer noted a number of donors in attendance and recognized several recent substantial gifts.

Donors Linda and Michael Morris of Ocean Optics

�We are fortunate to have Michael and Linda Morris from Ocean Optics, Inc., the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership and St. Petersburg Times each providing us with $50,000 to help endow a fellowship program that is dedicated to supporting minority graduate students,� said Betzer, adding that the Times was �perhaps the most generous corporate citizen in the Tampa Bay area.�

According to Betzer, the college has also gotten a substantial boost from the Joint Oceanographic Institutions in Washington, D.C. The group has agreed to fund a minority graduate student at USF�s College of Marine Science for the next five years so that all of the earnings associated with the new endowment for the Bridge to the Doctorate Program can be reinvested in the principal.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

August 10, 2005: Tampa Bay becomes "Smart Bay" with well-placed sensors.

Jim Wilson of COT's Systems Development Group

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - A demonstration in July in which scientists and engineers from the University of South Florida placed sophisticated, small, rugged sensors at strategic points in Tampa Bay and downloaded data from them wirelessly illustrated how public, private, scientific and academic communities could remotely monitor a number of bay conditions.

"Our broadband wireless coastal sensor network project has developed and deployed multiple wireless sensors capable of monitoring biological, chemical and physical targets that affect Tampa Bay and send that 'real-time' information back to shore," said David Fries, the project's principle investigator from the College of Marine Science's Center for Ocean Technology.

The wireless capability, said Fries, is the newest step in making sensing systems more effective.

"The focus of the project is to develop a coastal security system and improve marine ecosystem protection and management," he explained. "Additional applications can be in waterway transportation and supporting ocean forecasting models."

The sensors are examples of micromachine technology called Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems (MEMS). One key demonstrated device was a low cost salinity sensor made of waterproof printed circuit MEMS materials.

According to Fries, for a large network to be deployed, sensors with communications abilities must be low power, inexpensive and rugged, standing up to whatever the marine environment dishes out, including hurricanes, changes in salinity and fresh water input, hazardous materials spills and land run-off. The water quality component of the sensing network will eventually monitor chlorophyll, turbidity, dissolved oxygen and other biogeochemical qualities.

Ocean sensing systems are an emerging reality, but the pace of growth has been hindered by its expense.

"The immediate problem for ocean sensor network growth is not a lack of technologies, but the lack of a means to deploy a high density of measurement devices inexpensively," explained Fries.

Accordingly, the USF team believes many of the sensors needed for effective ocean observation can be further miniaturized.

"Sensors for imaging, pressure, temperature, biochemical traces and pathogens can all be reduced in size and combined and employed to get a better understanding of what is happening underwater," said Fries. "We have already developed a self-contained, network of fieldable microsensors fabricated with micromachine technology."

The next step, and one which is well underway, is integrating the broadband sensor network with small, autonomous vehicles and more sensors into an adaptive network.

The project was supported with a grant from the Office of Naval Research.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore
July 22, 2005: Dean testifies before Public Service Commision. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Dean Peter R. Betzer provided testimony to the Public Service Commission praising Progress Energy Florida's support of minority graduate students and the Oceanography Camp for Girls at the USF College of Marine Science. See the article for details.

Dr. Al Hine being interviewed by BayNews 9 television at the expedition's return. Photo by Randolph Fillmore

July 6, 2005: Team of researchers return from �recon� trip to deepest coral reef in U.S. ST. PETERSBURG, Florida - A team of researchers from the University of South Florida�s College of Marine Science, the Florida Institute of Oceanography, the U.S. Geological Survey, Mote Marine Laboratory and the Harte Institute of Texas A&M University, returned to USF�s Bayboro Harbor July 1 after an eight-day reconnaissance mission to Pulley Ridge, a 225 mile long feature extending along the west Florida shelf in approximately 250 feet of water. The shelf supports multiple ancient shorelines, submerged when sea levels rose due to melting ice after the last glaciation over 13,000 years ago. The southernmost 25 miles of Pulley Ridge supports active coral growth that comprises the newly-discovered deepest reef in U.S. waters.
The research team combined resources to analyze the biology and geology of the parts of the shelf. While researchers aboard �RV Suncoaster� documented seafloor biology, Al Hine, associate dean of research at the College of Marine Science, was aboard �RV Bellows,� where efforts to map the seafloor along Pulley Ridge revealed four ancient shorelines dating back to when sea levels in the Gulf of Mexico were 400 feet lower than today.

�During the last glaciation, ice melted unevenly in North America,� said Hine, a geological oceanographer. �This caused multiple rises of sea level, creating successive shorelines, like bathtub rings.�

Hine said the successive shorelines, 100 miles off today�s Florida coast, still stand seven to eight meters high submerged between 60 and 90 meters below the surface. In appearance, the series of shorelines are not unlike the barrier islands off west Florida today.

�They did not erode - as so many barrier islands do - but became submerged and served as the hard substrate on which coral reefs could be built,� explained Hine.

According to Hine, crews on both vessels worked in shifts, 24 hours a day, for the duration of the expedition.

�The shelf is bigger than the state of Florida,� said Hine. �We wanted to cover as much as possible.�

Biologists aboard the �RV Suncoaster� brought back samples of algae thought to be rare in the Gulf of Mexico, a possible new species of coral, unusual mollusks and seafloor �reef worms,� which may be newly discovered species.

The announcement in January of the unique reef�s discovery made a big splash in marine science circles and in the media.

Besides the two FIO research vessels, the expedition included a mini submarine for photography, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for mapping operations and several scuba divers, who breathed a special mix of gasses to allow them to work between 250 and 300 feet down while collecting samples.
-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

Photo by Tim Taylor

July 2, 2005: Expedition returns from Pulley Ridge reef. A team of marine researchers returned to Bayboro Harbor in St. Petersburg on Friday after an eight-day expedition aboard FIO's R/V Suncoaster to the Pulley Ridge Reef, which is 100 miles off Naples. The team included scientists from USF's College of Marine Science, Florida Institute of Oceanography, the U.S. Geological Survey, Mote Marine Laboratory, and the Harte Institute of Texas A&M University. Articles on the expediton appeared in editions of the St. Petersburg Times and the Naples Daily News.

Photos by Jyotika Virmani

June 29, 2005: Just another normal day at work. Numerous Bull Sharks and Stingrays have been sighted in the last several days in Bayboro Harbor along the seawall by the Poynter Library. There were more than 8 sharks, each 6-8ft in length. It's unusual to see them in this area, but it is attributed to the large Red Tide bloom currently along the central west coast of Florida.

June 24, 2005: USF and FIO researchers return to deepest U.S. reef. ST. PETERSBURG, Florida- Researchers from the University of South Florida's College of Marine Science, supported by the Florida Institute of Oceanography, sail June 23 to the recently discovered Pulley Ridge coral reef - the deepest coral reef in U.S. waters. The expedition will return to USF's Bayboro Harbor July 1 with a treasure of scientific data and samples for analysis.

Photo by Bret Jarrett

The reef, which stretches for 125 miles along the south Florida platform about 100 miles off Naples on ancient, submerged barrier islands at a depth of 250 feet, is unique because of its depth. The reef sits on barrier islands that are thought to have become submerged when sea levels rose after the last glaciation, over 13,000 years ago.

The announcement in January of the unique reefs' discovery made a big splash in marine science circles and in the media.

"The exceptionally clear water along Florida's southwest coast allows sunlight to penetrate to 250 feet below the surface supporting photosynthesis by plants and allowing corals, which have a symbiotic relationship with tiny one-celled algae, to thrive," said John Ogden, FIO director.

According to Ogden, the FIO is sending two ships - "RV Bellows" and "RV Suncoaster" - to aid in the expedition. Crews will work in shifts and the research will go on 24 hours a day for the 8-day expedition along the full length of Pulley Ridge.

"The expedition has three objectives," explained Ogden. "We want to map the full extent of the Ridge in order to locate the richest coral concentrations, and photograph it with state-of-the-art digital cameras. We will also be bringing back samples of the reef and the algae."

Besides the USF, the expedition includes scientists from the USGS, Mote Marine Laboratory, and the Harte Institute of Texas A&M University. The expedition will include a mini-submarine for photography, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) for mapping operations and a team of scuba divers, who must breathe a special mix of gasses to work between 250 and 300 feet down while collecting samples.

"This is a reconnaissance mission," said Ogden. "Each team of scientists and each vessel will have a different role to play."

When the mission returns to the USF St. Petersburg docks, researchers will be on-hand to discuss the expedition with members of the media. Ogden will be available for questions during the expedition.
(See Jan 2 web story) http://www.marine.usf.edu/news-and-events/index.shtml

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

June 23, 2005: CMS professor elected to board. Dr. Mark Luther, Associate Professor in the College of Marine Science and a physical oceanographer was elected to a 2-year term to the initial Board of Directors of the Regional Association for the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System (GMCOOS).

June 10, 2005: USF scientists sniff out nasty chemicals underwater. ST. PETERSBURG, Florida.� Scientists and engineers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science Center for Ocean Technology (COT) are developing equipment to detect dissolved gasses and volatile organic compounds in the deep marine environment. Using specialized mass spectrometry equipment in a protective underwater housing, COT's Tim Short and colleagues are able to measure compounds at concentrations less that one part per billion.

�Mass spectrometry (MS) is a powerful tool for detecting a wide variety of compounds in very small quantities and at extremely low concentrations,� said Short.

Pete Wenner and Jason Vignoul deploy MS equipment into Gulf of Mexico

COT researcher Pete Wenner and Jason Rueter from FWC/Fish and Wildlife Research Institute deploy MS equipment into Gulf of Mexico. Photo by Ryan Bell

Underwater MS can monitor a number of scientifically important gases, such as methane, oxygen and carbon dioxide as well as a range of harmful compounds such as benzene, chloroform and toluene. In addition, analysis in the field has important advantages over sample collection and analysis in the lab.

�On-site analysis lowers the risk of sample loss, contamination and degradation,� Short explained. �The quicker we can analyze a sample the better. Being able to analyze continuously in real-time is optimal for hazardous situations. Furthermore, field analysis greatly increases measurement rates and reduces cost per sample."

According to Short, mass spectrometers contain a vacuum within which individual electrically charged molecules (ions) can be analyzed. When sample molecules enter the vacuum chamber through a membrane filter they are electrically charged and then sorted by their mass-to-charge ratio. The analysis produces a graph showing a spectrum of ion intensities for each sample. From this information the molecular structures of compounds can be identified.

Originally focused on shallow water environments, Short and colleagues are currently developing systems that can go to depths greater than half a mile. Changes in the membrane interface design have increased the depths at which they deploy the mass spectrometer and recent tests have indicated that eventually the MS instrument will be able to reach full ocean depths.

�We will soon be able to go to depths of three miles,� he predicted. �In the course of development, we first had divers take the instruments to 60 feet off the coast of Fort Meyers to study the gas composition of some hydrothermal seeps."

Next, the research group collected MS depth profiles to 600 feet in an inlet in Canada and, more recently, to 1140 feet in the Gulf of Mexico.

�We also used a remotely operated vehicle to take the MS equipment 240 feet down in Lake Yellowstone,� explained Short.

With MS equipment mounted onto an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), Short says a number of practical goals come into sharper focus. The environmental benefits of knowing what chemicals are down there, their concentrations, and where they go, are invaluable.

�Taking MS analysis into greater depths with roving vehicles has some very practical scientific and environmental purposes,� said Short.

For example, deep-water hydrothermal vents can be studied using MS and marine deposits of methane gas can be detected. In some cases, underwater methane can be hazardous because it can destabilize the seafloor, but if scientists learn how to convert methane hydrates � ice-like deposits of methane gas formed in low temperatures and under great pressure � into usable fuel, seeking out methane deposits using underwater MS might be another �gold rush.�

�Applications for on-site MS at extreme depths are varied and have potentially immense scientific and economic benefits,� speculated Short.

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

May 25, 2005: A COPY OF COT's QUARTERLY NEWSLETTER �SIGNALS� IS NOW AVAILABLE. Click here to view.
May 9, 2005: USF researchers detect underwater TNT. ST. PETERSBURG, Floirda.- In a study published in Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical (v 106 no.1), University of South Florida College of Marine Science researchers in the Center for Ocean Technology (COT) explained their recent development of a sensor that can detect the explosive 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) in a marine environment.
"Explosive residue in water, mostly from the use and disposal of explosive substances of the last 100 years, is a significant environmental problem," said David Fries, co-author of the study and COT researcher. "However, recent anti-terrorism efforts have placed a high priority on detecting TNT in the marine environment. With interest in port security rising, detecting explosive residue in the water is essential."

According to Fries, the newly developed sensor is a scanning voltammetry-based electrochemical sensor that uses electrochemical means to detect explosive residues. It is a self-contained system that uses an electrochemical electrode to sense for trace TNT. Researchers took into account the fact that TNT in seawater undergoes biodegradation in a number of different ways and accounted for those processes in developing the sensor.

The sensor has been designed to detect several kinds of commercial and military explosives while riding on a remotely controlled guided surface vehicle (GSV) that wirelessly transmits data to a handheld computer.

The system has been tested in the field under a number of conditions, including turbulent waters. In field tests, the new sensor was mounted on the GSV, a six foot long, 175 pound vehicle built by USF chemistry professor and study co-author Eric Steimle. The GSV can also be fitted with video cameras, global positioning system (GPS), other chemical and biological sensors and wireless equipment for sending data. Steimle built the GSV from everyday materials available at hardware stores and has piggy-backed a great variety of equipment for USF marine studies. Recent funding from the Greenwell Foundation has allowed Steimle to redesign and upgrade the platform to increase its range and performance.

"This mobile, intelligent sensor platform permits the operator to be "in the loop" and make real time decisions during chemical surveys," said Fries. "It addresses the growing demand for in-place, continuous TNT measurement. It is also an approach that can be extended to other kinds of explosives."

Fries' co-researcher from the University of South Florida is Xiaojuan Fu. The work was supported by grants from the Office of Naval Research.

-Report courtesy of Randolph Fillmore

April 28, 2005:
Researchers' remote-sensing photo in National Geographic.
Congratulations go out to CMS student Serge Andrefouet and professor Frank Muller-Karger for their stunning image of the "Tongue of the Ocean" west of Great Exuma Island, Bahamas which appears in a two page spread in the May 2005 edition of National Geographic magazine. Click here to read more about the photo and download it as wallpaper.

April 21, 2005: USF oceanographers look at possible local impact of 2005 hurricane season. ST. PETERSBURG, Florida. � University of South Florida College of Marine Science physical oceanographer Robert Weisberg and associate Lianyuan Zheng, using data gathered in the wake of last season's spate of hurricanes in the greater Tampa Bay area, have run models to examine the potential for hurricane storm surge impacts in our area. The model, said Weisberg, looks at the surge potential of storms as they approach from different directions, at different speeds, and make landfall at different locations.