Instruments

Tekran 2500 Total Mercury Analysis System (not automated; cold vapor atomic fluorescence spectrometry)

Instruments that generate enlarged images of samples using the phenomena of reflection and absorption of electrons behaving as waves.

Bushmaster samplers are original instruments created at Penn State to collect hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. Hydraulic rods are attached to a very fine mesh that is deployed over the tubeworm patch of interest to collect the tubeworms and associated community. Once the assemblage is enclosed, the net is cinched closed using the submersible or ROV manipulator. This allows for quantitative collections of tubeworm communities.

Electronic devices that record data over time or in relation to location either with a built-in instrument or sensor or via external instruments and sensors.

A tape measure or measuring tape is a flexible ruler. It consists of a ribbon of cloth, plastic, fibre glass, or metal strip with linear-measurement markings. It is a common tool for measuring distance or length.

Various devices for sub-sampling plankton samples

Folsom splitter: http://www.aquaticresearch.com/folsom_plankton_splitter.htm

Motoda box splitter: http://www.aquaticresearch.com/motodo_plankton_splitter.htm

Hensen Stempel Pippette: http://www.envcoglobal.com/catalog/product/plankton-counting/hensen-stempel-pipettes.html

Sedgewick-Rafter Plankton Counting Chamber: http://www.benmeadows.com/wildco-sedgewick-rafter-counting-chambers_36816595/

A tool used to analyze and quantify fish swimming behavior, physiology, and performance.

Underwater writing slates and pencils are used to transport pre-dive plans underwater, to record facts whilst underwater and to aid communication with other divers.

The OXY-10 mini is a precise multi-channel oxygen meter for up to 10 'in-house' sensors, simultaneously controlling and reading them. The meter is used with oxygen sensors based on a 2mm optical fibre. The meter is compatible with sensors that are type PSt3 which has a detection limit 15 ppb, 0 - 100% oxygen.

A bone cutter is a surgical instrument used to cut bones or coral fragments. 

An artificial colonization substrate (or "settlment plate") made from PVC pipe cut length-wise and engraved with lines to roughen its surface. It is used to determine the extent of colonization and/or the diversity of settled organisms in a marine or artificial environment.

Germanium detectors are semiconductor diodes having a p-i-n structure in which the intrinsic (i) region is sensitive to ionizing radiation, particularly x rays and gamma rays. Under reverse bias, an electric field extends across the intrinsic or depleted region. When photons interact with the material within the depleted volume of a detector, charge carriers (holes and electrons) are produced and are swept by the electric field to the p and n electrodes. This charge, which is in proportion to the energy deposited in the detector by the incoming photon, is converted into a voltage pulse by an integral charge sensitive preamplifier. Germanium detectors are mostly used for gamma spectroscopy in nuclear physics, as well as x-ray spectroscopy.

A laser scanning confocal microscope is a type of confocal microscope that obtains high-resolution optical images with depth selectivity, in which a laser beam passes through a light source aperture and then is focused by an objective lens into a small (ideally diffraction-limited) focal volume within or on the surface of a specimen.

The confocal microscope uses fluorescence optics. 'Confocal' means that the image is obtained from the focal plane only, any noise resulting from sample thickness being removed optically. 'Laser scanning' means the images are acquired point by point under localized laser excitation rather than full sample illumination, as in conventional widefield microscopy.

Cell strainers are devices used for straining stem and primary cell samples to obtain uniform cell suspensions from tissues and preparation of flow cytometry samples. 

Drifting buoys are free drifting platforms with a float or buoy that keep the drifter at the surface and underwater sails or socks that catch the current. These instruments sit at the surface of the ocean and are transported via near-surface ocean currents. They are not fixed to the ocean bottom, therefore they "drift" with the currents. For this reason, these instruments are referred to as drifters, or drifting buoys.

The surface float contains sensors that measure different parameters, such as sea surface temperature, barometric pressure, salinity, wave height, etc. Data collected from these sensors are transmitted to satellites passing overhead, which are then relayed to land-based data centers.

definition sources: https://mmisw.org/ont/ioos/platform/drifting_buoy and https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/gdp/faq.php#drifter1

Instrument that measures water column surface wave parameters including height, period, direction and energy spectra.

An artificial colonization substrate made of ceramic tiles. It is used to determine the extent of colonization and/or the diversity of settled organisms in a marine or artificial environment.

The Benthic Ichthyofauna Net for Coral/Kelp Environments (BINCKE) is a rectangular net opened and closed by means of a rigid, hinged frame at one end and of variable size depending upon the size and behavior of targeted species. It is used for the collection of fishes from structurally complex environments (e.g., coral reefs, kelp forests.
See Anderson T.W. and M.H. Carr. 1998. BINCKE: A highly efficient net for collecting reef-associated fishes. Environmental Biology of Fishes 51:111-115.

An X-ray microscope uses electromagnetic radiation in the soft X-ray band to produce images of very small objects. The resolution of X-ray microscopy lies between that of the optical microscope and the electron microscope.

Instruments measuring carbonate in sediments and inorganic carbon (including DIC) in the water column.

An artificial colonization substrate made of a sheet of PVC with engraved lines to roughen its surface. It is used to determine the extent of colonization and/or the diversity of settled organisms in a marine or artificial environment.

A barrel used to collect water samples in oceanography. It holds 250 liters of sea water.

A device that collects samples of pore water from various horizons below the seabed.

Beardsley Drifters are near-surface satellite-tracked drifters used for observations of circulation patterns. They are WOCE-style drifters featuring holey sock drogues. Each drifter has a small (~ 30 cm diameter) surface float with ARGOS transmitter and batteries tethered to a holey sock drogue centered at 15 m below the surface. The drogue, about 10 m tall and 1 m in diameter, is designed to "lock" itself to the water so that the surface float follows the mean water motion at 15 m depth with very little slippage even in high winds. Thus measuring the drifter's position as a function of time provides a Lagrangian measurement of the 15-m ocean current.

An instrument that measures temperature digitally.

A 3D scan captures digital information about the shape of an object with equipment that uses a laser or light to measure the distance between the scanner and the object.

Microarray scanners are instruments used to detect and quantify the intensity of fluorescence of spots on a microarray slide, by selectively exciting fluorophores with a laser and measuring the fluorescence.

A microarray scanner typically consists of lasers, a special microscope, and a camera. The DNA material in the microarray is labeled with fluorescents which become excited by the lasers in the scanner. The microscope and camera work together to create a digital image of the array.

A portable analyzer designed for laboratories or field based isotope analysis. It uses Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) to measure the spectral signature of the molecule of interest. The instrument includes a closed-loop temperature and pressure control. The L1102-i can be used for analysis of liquid water only. It has a typical precision of 0.1 per mil for d18O and 0.5 per mil for dD.

A caliper (or "pair of calipers") is a device used to measure the distance between two opposite sides of an object. Many types of calipers permit reading out a measurement on a ruled scale, a dial, or a digital display.

A square or rectangular rigid frame of known area, often home-made, that is placed on the substrate to be sampled to mark a fixed area for sampling flora or fauna.

Fukui produces multi-species, multi-purpose collapsible or stackable fish traps, available in different sizes.

In-situ instruments that can determine the proportion of one or more gaseous components of the atmosphere.

Acquires satellite signals and tracks your location.

This term has been deprecated. Use instead: https://www.bco-dmo.org/instrument/560

Capable of being performed in numerous environments, push coring is just as it sounds. Push coring is simply pushing the core barrel (often an aluminum or polycarbonate tube) into the sediment by hand. A push core is useful in that it causes very little disturbance to the more delicate upper layers of a sub-aqueous sediment.

Description obtained from: http://web.whoi.edu/coastal-group/about/how-we-work/field-methods/coring/

Description excerpt from Hydroptic website
http://www.hydroptic.com/index.php/public/Page/product_item/ZOOSCAN

The ZooSCAN (CNRS patent) system makes use of scanner technology with custom lighting and a watertight scanning chamber into which liquid zooplankton samples can be placed. The scanner recovers a high-resolution, digitial image and the sample can be recovered without damage.  These digital images can then be investigated by computer processing. While the resolution of the digitized zooplankton images is lower than the image obtained using a binocular microscope this technique has proved to be more than adequate for large sample sets. Identification of species is done by automatic comparison of the image (vignette) of each individual animal in the scanned image with a library data set which may be built by the investigator for each individual survey or imported from a previous survey. The latest machine learning algorithm allows high recognition levels even if we recommend complementary manual sorting to achieve a high number of taxonomic groups.

Optical instruments and graduated poles used in surveying to determine the elevation of a location relative to a datum level.

An acoustic recorder senses and records acoustic signals from the environment.

A device designed to regulate the temperature of a vessel by bathing it in water held at the desired temperature. [Definition Source: NCI] 

Terrestrial laser scanner

A thermistor is a type of resistor whose resistance varies significantly with temperature, more so than in standard resistors. The word is a portmanteau of thermal and resistor. Thermistors are widely used as inrush current limiters, temperature sensors, self-resetting overcurrent protectors, and self-regulating heating elements.

Thermistors differ from resistance temperature detectors (RTD) in that the material used in a thermistor is generally a ceramic or polymer, while RTDs use pure metals. The temperature response is also different; RTDs are useful over larger temperature ranges, while thermistors typically achieve a higher precision within a limited temperature range, typically 90C to 130C.

A system of instruments/devices that provide irradiation of materials. Irradiation is an energy transfer process during which a material entity receives energy through radiation.

A machine with a rapidly rotating container that applies centrifugal force to its contents, typically to separate fluids of different densities (e.g., cream from milk) or liquids from solids.

A muffle furnace or muffle oven (sometimes retort furnace in historical usage) is a furnace in which the subject material is isolated from the fuel and all of the products of combustion, including gases and flying ash.  A type of jacketed enclosure that is used to heat a material to significantly high temperatures while keeping it contained and fully isolated from external contaminants, chemicals or substances. Muffle furnaces are usually lined with stainless steel, making them largely corrosion-resistant.

Capable of being performed in numerous environments, percussion coring techniques are just as they sound. Similar to push coring (in which the core barrel is pushed into the sediment by hand), in percussion coring, the core is driven into the sediment by a percussion instrument such as a mallet or slide hammer.

Description from: https://web.whoi.edu/coastal-group/about/how-we-work/field-methods/coring/

A pump that uses osmotic pressure to collect water samples.

An example of an osmotic pump is an OsmoSampler (Jannasch et al., 2004) which has no electrical or mechanical parts.

References:

Jannasch Hans W. , Wheat C. Geoff , Plant Josh N. , Kastner Miriam , Stakes Debra S. , (2004),Continuous chemical monitoring with osmotically pumped water samplers: OsmoSampler design and applications, Limnol. Oceanogr. Methods, 2, doi:10.4319/lom.2004.2.102.

Plate readers (also known as microplate readers) are laboratory instruments designed to detect biological, chemical or physical events of samples in microtiter plates. They are widely used in research, drug discovery, bioassay validation, quality control and manufacturing processes in the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industry and academic organizations. Sample reactions can be assayed in 6-1536 well format microtiter plates. The most common microplate format used in academic research laboratories or clinical diagnostic laboratories is 96-well (8 by 12 matrix) with a typical reaction volume between 100 and 200 uL per well. Higher density microplates (384- or 1536-well microplates) are typically used for screening applications, when throughput (number of samples per day processed) and assay cost per sample become critical parameters, with a typical assay volume between 5 and 50 µL per well. Common detection modes for microplate assays are absorbance, fluorescence intensity, luminescence, time-resolved fluorescence, and fluorescence polarization. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_reader, 2014-09-0-23.

An electronic device designed to take an input signal and output an increased signal strength.

The squidpop assay is described in detail in Duffy et al., 2015 (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0142994).

In summary, the squidpop consists of a standard prey item: a small piece of dried squid mantle tissue, tethered to a fiberglass plant stake with light monofilament fishing line. The squidpop is assembled by first punching a 1.3-centimeter (cm) diameter disc from the squid mantle using a cork borer. A length of monofilament line is threaded through the squid disc and tied to it securely, then the other end of the line is attached to the end of the plant stake with electrical tape, leaving 1-2 cm of line with the squid piece on the end. The short length of the line helps prevent tangling the tethers when squidpops are bundled together.

Squidpops are deployed by pushing the stakes securely into the substratum. The stakes are typically arranged in one or two rows, but the spatial arrangement is of secondary importance to ensuring that the squidpops can be reliably relocated and retrieved at the end of the deployment. Squidpops are assessed for the presence or absence of the squid bait after some period of time.