August 7, 2000

Highlights

• The HyCODE/COMOP field season is over and the people at Tuckerton are breathing a sigh of relief. The experiment was a huge success and the month long exercise has everyone excited. Highlights include providing the best calibration database for hyperspectral ocean imagery ever, finding rivers of "red tide" offshore which were highly bioluminescent, documenting the tidal forcing of optical fronts up against the large slug of Hudson River water which was flowing down the coast, and providing robust three-day ocean forecasts of local in-water conditions. The experiment was a big success largely due to the efforts of Tuckerton station staff, the graduate students, and the undergraduate interns. These are the best parts of our research team, and they showed that again this year--Oscar & Scott
• Peter Rona served as chief scientist on the VIP (Vents Imaging Pacific) cruise of the R/V Thompson 21-31 July port-to-port Seattle to the Main Endeavour Vent Field on the northern Juan de Fuca Ridge with a scientific team from Rutgers (Rona, post-doc Karen Bemis, and two graduate students from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering), Applied Physics Lab/University of Washington, Japan Marine Science and Technology Center (JAMSTEC), NOAA, Fisheries and Oceans Department (Canada), and the University of Montreal. The cruise successfully performed, for the first time, detailed and panoramic acoustic imaging of diffuse flow and plumes discharging from black smoker vents, using a state-of-the-art sonar system (Simrad SM 2000) mounted on ROV Jason and in situ measurements of temperature and flow rates.
• Peter Rona was interviewed dockside at the University of Washington pier in Seattle by NBC News for a Discovery Science News program on the possibility of tsunamis caused by large-scale slumping of sediments on the continental margin off New Jersey. Update: The program is scheduled to air on the Discovery Science News at 9:00 pm on a Friday evening in early September.
• Judy Grassle will serve on the Search Committee for a new Executive Dean of Cook College and Director of the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. Lily Young will chair the Search Committee, which will begin the review of applicants in September.

Seminars

• August 7, 2000, 3:00-4:00PM, Alampi Room: Seminar by Dr. Changsheng Chen, University of Georgia, "Coupled Physical and Biological Processes on Georges Bank: A Modeling Exploration." (candidate for Physical Oceanographer position)