Instruments

The raised footrope whiting (or hake) trawl is a trawl with a specially designed spiny dogfish excluder grate within the extension of a silver hake (whiting) trawl net.

The PerkinElmer Tri-Carb 3110TR is a benchtop liquid scintillation analyzer for detecting small amounts of alpha, beta, and gamma radioactivity. It features a Multichannel Analyzer with an effective resolution of 1/10 keV and an extended dynamic quench range. Sample capacity is either 408 standard 20 mL vials, or 720 small 4 or 7 mL vials. The instrument includes a barium-133 low-energy external standard source centered under the sample vial which eliminates the effects of volume variations. It has an energy range of 0-2000 keV and an operating ambient temperature range of 15-35 degrees Celsius.

TriOS ARC Hyperspectral Radiometer Sensor

A thermosalinograph (TSG) is used to obtain a continuous record of sea surface temperature and salinity. On many research vessels the TSG is integrated into the ship's underway seawater sampling system and reported with the underway or alongtrack data.

The original Tucker Trawl, a net with a rectangular mouth opening first built in 1951 by G.H. Tucker, was not an opening/closing system, but shortly thereafter it was modified so that it could be opened and closed.  The original had a 183 cm by 183 cm flexible rectangular mouth opening 914 cm long net with 1.8 cm stretched mesh for the first 457 cm and 1.3 cm mesh for last 457 cm. 152 cm of coarse plankton or muslin netting lined the end of the net. Tucker designed the net to collect animals associated with the deep scattering layers, principally euphausiids, siphonophores, and midwater fish. (from Wiebe and Benfield, 2003). Currently used Tucker Trawls usually have 1-m2 openings and can have a single net or multiple nets on the frame.

The Turner Designs Aquafluor 8000 is a lightweight, handheld fluorometer/turbidimeter ideal for field use. It can be configured with one or two channels to measure turbidity, chlorophyll, algae, dyes, ammonium, CDOM, and more. Detailed description at https://www.turnerdesigns.com/aquafluor-handheld-fluorometer

The Turner Designs 10-AU Field Fluorometer is used to measure Chlorophyll fluorescence. The 10AU Fluorometer can be set up for continuous-flow monitoring or discrete sample analyses. A variety of compounds can be measured using application-specific optical filters available from the manufacturer. (read more from Turner Designs, turnerdesigns.com, Sunnyvale, CA, USA)

A towed undulating vehicle is a generic class of instruments. See the data set specific information for a detailed description. These are often prototype instrument packages designed to make very specific measurements.

The Unisense H2S microsensor is a tool for studying H2S production and oxidation in a wide range of applications. The H2S microsensor is a miniaturized amperometric sensor with internal reference and a sensing anode. The anode is polarized against an internal reference. Driven by the external partial pressure, H2S from the environment penetrates through the sensor tip membrane into the electrolyte where the H2S is ultimately oxidized by the anode. This generates a current in the pA range which is measured by a picoammeter. See more on the manufacturer's website: https://www.unisense.com/H2S/

The Unisense pH microelectrode is a miniaturized conventional pH electrode. The instrument is designed for research applications. It is based on selective diffusion of protons through pH glass, and the determination of potentials between the internal electrolyte and an internal or external reference electrode. It has a range of tip sizes (10 um-1.1 mm), a measurement range of pH 2-10 (linear 4-9) and detection limit of 0.1 pH unit. See more on the manufacturer's website: https://www.unisense.com/

The Shimadzu UV Spectrophotometer is manufactured by Shimadzu Scientific Instruments (ssi.shimadzu.com). Shimadzu manufacturers several models of spectrophotometer; refer to dataset for make/model information.

A description of the UVP instrument can be found in the following publication: Picheral, M., L. Guidi, L. Stemmann, D. M. Karl, G. Iddaoud, and G. Gorsky. 2010. The Underwater Vision Profiler 5: An advanced instrument for high spatial resolution studies of particle size spectra and zooplankton. Limnol. Oceanogr. Meth. 8: 462-473. (access the PDF at URL: http://cmore.soest.hawaii.edu/cmoredata/LMO/Guidi/Picheral_2010.pdf)

Vector Averaging Current Meter

A laboratory instrument used for quantifying organic elements. It can measure C, H, N and S and optionally O, Cl and TIC. It was first developed in 2006 as a successor to the vario EL III. It uses a high-temperature combustion unit that is able to complete sample digestion at up to 1200 deg C (or 1800 deg C at the point of combustion when tin foil is used) and a jet injection of oxygen directly to the sample during combustion. Separation of gas components are performed on up to 3 gas-selective columns which trap gases until they are heated up and the prior gas peak has reached the baseline during detection. It uses a Thermal Conductivity Detector (TCD) as standard. An infrared (IR) detector for sulfur and oxygen and electrochemical detector for chlorine are optionally available. The instrument can measure C / N elemental ratios of up to 12,000:1 and provides an elemental detection limit of < 40 ppm (TCD).

A submersible single-channel acoustic receiver with onboard transmitting capabilities, designed for use in the monitoring of aquatic fauna. It is capable of transmitting its assigned ID code, identifying other Vemco coded transmitters in the receiver area, and acoustically communicating with a surface VR100-200 receiver. It can communicate additional information and make select changes to other Vemco transmitters via the surface VR100-200 receiver. It uses VUE software for communication via Bluetooth. The VR2Tx is housed in a corrosion-resistant cylindrical high-pressure plastic case, depth-rated to 500 m. The VR2Tx has 16 MB of onboard memory storage (approx. 1.6 million detections). The VR2Tx operates on a factory-set frequency of 69 kHz, and has an approximate battery life of 14 months. It can operate in temperatures ranging from -5 degC to +40 degC.

The Vertical Multiple Plankton Sampler (VMPS), a variation of the multiple plankton sampler (MPS), is a specially designed opening-closing, multi-layer net system used for collecting zooplankton (Terazaki and Tomatsu, 1997). The mesh size and mouth opening can vary depending on research focus. The VMPS is towed through depth ranges with nets closed at known intervals to yield estimations of standing stock, vertical distribution and diel vertical migration.

The VMPS as described by Wiebe and Benfield (2003) is named the Ocean Research Institute Vertical Multiple Plankton Sampler (ORI-VMPS) with specifications: 100 cm x 100 cm rectangular mouth opening multiple net system that can be equipped with 4 to 10 nets, 510 cm long with 0.33 mm nylon mesh. Nets are opened/closed by surface commands down
transmitted via conduction cable to an underwater
unit (see Plate 31 C (Wiebe and Benfield, 2003)).

References:

Terazaki, M. and Tomatsu, C. (1997). A vertical multiple opening and closing plankton sampler. Journal of Advanced Marine Science Technological Society, 3, 127-132.



Wiebe, Peter H. and Mark C. Benfield, 2003. From the Hensen net toward four-dimensional biological
oceanography. Progress in Oceanography, 56, pp. 118.

The Video Plankton Recorder (VPR) is a video-microscope system used for imaging plankton and other particulate matter in the size range from a few micrometers to several centimeters. The VPR is essentially an underwater microscope. It consists of four video cameras (with magnifying optics) synchronized at 60 fields per second (fps) to a red-filtered 80 W xenon strobe (pulse duration = 1 microsecond). The current lens on each camera can be adjusted to provide a field of view between 5 mm and 10 cm. Use of higher magnification lenses is currently being explored for viewing protozoans (less than 1 micrometer resolution). The four cameras are set for concentric viewing fields so that a range of up to four magnifications can be viewed simultaneously, allowing a wide size range of plankton to be sampled. Depth of field is adjusted by the lens aperture setting, and the volume sampled in each video field ranges from about 1 ml to 1 liter, depending on lens settings. The cameras have been configured for stereoscopic viewing as well.A strobe on the other arm illuminates the imaged volume and flashes 60 times per second, producing 60 images per second of the particles and plankton in the water. The images are then saved internally on a computer hard disk and later plotted.

Deployment: Most commonly, the VPR is mounted in a frame and lowered into the water from the stern of the ship. Sometimes, a CTD also is mounted next to the VPR to collect depth, temperature, and salinity information at the same time as each video image. The instrument is lowered down through the water to a maximum depth of 350 meters to generate a profile of plankton/particle abundance and taxon group along with temperature and salinity. In addition to the towed configuration for mapping plankton distributions, it is possible to deploy the VPR in a fixed position (on a mooring) for viewing plankton swimming behaviors in two or three dimensions. The VPR instrument system has been used in both configurations, and deployment on ROVs has been proposed.

This definition was taken from the WHOI Ocean Instruments Web site and from a US GLOBEC Newsletter.

General term for an instrument that measures the temperature of the water with which it is in contact (thermometer).

A dual-optical-sensor that carries a single-wavelength chlorophyll fluorometer (470nm ex/695nm em) and backscattering sensor (700 nm) that measures phytoplankton and particle concentration. It operates by using blue (470nm) and red (700 nm) LEDs that alternately flash. The blue LED stimulates chlorophyll fluorescence in plants while the red light illuminates the total particle field. The backscattering sensor has an in-water centroid angle of 142 degrees and can be calibrated to measure turbidity. The fluorometer can typically measure phytoplankton concentrations in the range 0-30 ug/l, with a sensitivity of 0.015 ug/l. The backscattering sensor can measure within the range 0-3 m-1, with a sensitivity of 0.0015 m-1. The instrument output in the standard version is digital and uses a low power mode and stores data. Other variants are used. The instrument is rated to a depth of 600m as standard, with the options of deeper instruments rated up to 6000m and instruments with bio-wipers, rated to 300 m.

This instrument comes in the following optional models: FLbb(RT), FLbb(RT)D, FLbbB, FLbbS, FLbbBS, FLbb2k. Refer to the datasheet from the manufacturer: https://www.seabird.com/asset-get.download.jsa?id=55460873804

The WETStar CDOM fluorometer measuring fluorescence as a proxy for dissolved matter absorption.

Description from Roman et al. (2019):
The Wire Flyer towed vehicle is a platform able to collect high-resolution water column sections. The vehicle is motivated by a desire to effectively capture spatial structures at the submesoscale. The Wire Flyer profiles up and down along a ship-towed cable autonomously using controllable wings for propulsion. At ship speeds between 2 and 5 kt (1.02–2.55 m s−1), the vehicle is able to profile over prescribed depth bands down to 1000 m. The vehicle carries sensors for conductivity, temperature, depth, oxygen, turbidity, chlorophyll, pH, and oxidation reduction potential. During normal operations, the vehicle is typically commanded to cover vertical regions between 300 and 400 m in height with profiles that repeat at kilometer spacing. The vertical profiling speed can be user-specified up to 150 m min−1. During operations, an acoustic modem is used to communicate with the vehicle to provide status information, data samples, and the ability to modify the sampling pattern.  

Detailed information can be found in the following publication:
Roman, C., Ullman, D. S., Hebert, D., & Licht, S. (2019). The Wire Flyer Towed Profiling System. Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology, 36(2), 161–182. doi:10.1175/jtech-d-17-0180.1

The WP-2 net is a variety of Ring Net for zooplankton but which is capable of being closed by means of a Nansen bottle-type release messenger weighing 0.8 kg and which can be equipped with a digital flow meter for determining the amount of water passing through the plankton net. The rings may have a variety of sizes (57cm, 70cm, 75 cm, or 1m internal diameter) and the nets which make up this device are in two parts, a cylindrical upper part and a conical lower part. The closing ring is between the two net segments. (more at KC Denmark)

The ship-mounted Vaisala Weather Transmitter WXT520 measures: Wind speed and direction; Liquid precipitation: rainfall, duration, intensity; Barometric pressure; Air temperature and Relative humidity. (for more information see http://www.vaisala.com/en/products/multiweathersensors/Pages/WXT520.aspx)

Instruments that identify crystalline solids by measuring the characteristic spaces between layers of atoms or molecules in a crystal.

An Expendable Sound Velocimeter (XSV) system consists of an expendable probe, a data processing/recording system, and a launcher and is used to obtain sound velocity profiles. more from Sippican at URL: http://www.sippican.com/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/312

The YSI Professional Plus handheld multiparameter meter provides for the measurement of a variety of combinations for dissolved oxygen, conductivity, specific conductance, salinity, resistivity, total dissolved solids (TDS), pH, ORP, pH/ORP combination, ammonium (ammonia), nitrate, chloride and temperature. More information from the manufacturer.

The Pacer gas-powered centrifugal pump is a water pumping system for zooplankton sampling.