Dye Experiment Study of Cross-Frontal Exchange, R/V Oceanus Cruise 342
DMO notes:
The documentation below describes a two ship operation. The data reported here are from the Bob Houghton cruise on the Oceanus 342.

PI documentation:
Two cruises were undertaken in May and June 1999 in which dye patches were released to study cross-frontal exchange. On Oceanus Cruise 342, led by Bob Houghton of LDEO, dye was released in the bottom mixed layer. A Scanfish towed unit was used to moniter the dispersion of dye as well as locate the frontal system on the Southern flank of Georges Bank. Jim Ledwell and Jim Churchill of WHOI led Endeavor Cruise 323/324 in which dye and drifters were deployed in the pycnocline and in the surface layer. Sampling on this cruise was done by the WHOI VPR group, yielding plankton distributions.

Figure 1 shows the location of dye and drifter deployments during these cruises. The LDEO dye was Fluorescein injected into the bottom mixed layer on the stratified side of the tidal front. The WHOI dye was Rhodamine-WT: #1 injected into the surface (1-3 m ) layer and #2-4 into the pycnocline. During the WHOI dye injections additional WHOI drifters drogued at various depths were deployed in the dye patch. Drifters also drogued at various depths were deployed by Manning in April and May on NOAA cruises. See the time line for the temporal distribution of the experiments.

Additional information about this experiment is available at the on-line report entitled Distribution of Salinity on the Cap of Georges Bank

The work is described in more detail in the following cruise reports:

Houghton, R. W., R/V Oceanus Cruise 342 to Georges Bank, Cruise Report, U. S. GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank Program, 1999.

Ledwell, J. R., T. G. Donoghue, C. J. Sellers, J. H. Churchill, D. Torres, D. McGillicuddy, V. Kosnyrev, C. S. Davis, S. M. Gallager, C. J. Ashjian, A. P. Girard, P. Alatalo, and Q. Hu, Lagrangian Studies of the Tidal Mixing Front on Georges Bank, R/V Endeavor Cruises 323 and 324, Cruise Report, U. S. GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank Program, 2000.

McGillicuddy, D. J., and V. K. Kosnyrev, Real-Time Modeling on Cruises EN323 and EN324, Cruise Report, U. S. GLOBEC Northwest Atlantic/Georges Bank Program, 1999.

Questions concerning these data should be directed to:
Bob Houghton
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia Univ. 202 Oceanography
Palisades, NY 10964
Phone: 845-365-8328
E-mail: houghton@ldeo.columbia.edu

Last updated March 28, 2006