Testing, Testing, 1,2,3! – One Ten East log

One Ten East Logs from the IIOE-2 voyage aboard RV Investigator are being posted on the WAMSI website during the month long voyage.

By Prof Lynnath Beckley

The RV Investigator departed Fremantle yesterday afternoon after loading equipment and supplies for our month-long voyage as part of the second International Indian Ocean Expedition. Everyone is finding their sea legs and adapting to the 24/7, 12 hours on and 12 hours off watch system.

Today, as we traverse the 1000 km towards our first station on 110°E, we stopped to do some equipment testing and personnel training so that everyone could become familiar with the equipment, procedures and safety involved with oceanographic sampling.

We are currently about 120 km west of Cape Leeuwin, one of the world’s “Great Capes”. Remarkably, at Cape Leeuwin there is a plaque commemorating the fact that on 6^th December 1801, Captain Mathew Flinders, Commander of HMAS Investigator, sighted Cape Leeuwin and started mapping the Australian coast. Now, on the modern 93m RV Investigator, we are on our way to map the south-east Indian Ocean repeating an oceanographic voyage conducted way back in May and June 1963 by the HMAS Diamantina as part of the first International Indian Ocean Expedition.

The present-day inscription at Cape Leeuwin dedicated to Captain Matthew Flinders, RN whom sighted Cape Leeuwin and commenced mapping of the Australian coast on 6 December 1801. Photo: Prof Lynnath Beckley

“Lights, sound, camera, action” could well have been the call today as we started our testing. Prof David Antoine’s optics team from Curtin University got their many instruments designed to examine light in the ocean up and running. Likewise, using sonobuoys, Curt and Micheline Jenner are already busy monitoring sound from whales as part of their ongoing work for the Australian Department of Defence. Micheline is also our resident photographer and has been busy with her brace of cameras documenting the activities of our 40 scientists and technicians.

Charlotte Robinson from Curtin University, part of David Antoine’s optics team holds a critical piece of their equipment. Photo: Micheline Jenner.

We also tested the CTD rosette which is a critical piece of equipment for all the researchers as we document the physical, chemical and biological properties of the water column. When it is brought back on board, it has over 400 L of water sampled from a range of depths in the ocean from which we can examine nutrients, microbes, genetics, pigments and get water to run a range of experiments such as primary production, nitrogen uptake and grazing by micro-zooplankton.

The zooplankton team were also busy testing their extensive arsenal of nets of various configurations and mesh sizes so that they can examine the poorly understood pelagic south-east Indian Ocean food web from tiny phytoplankton through to deep sea lantern fishes.

Curt Jenner deploying the first sonobuoy of the IN2019_V03 voyage to monitor the evening fish chorus. Photo: Micheline Jenner.

Micheline Jenner is ready, willing and able to capture the activities of the 40-member scientific team as well as any whales, dolphins and seabirds that stray within the ship’s field of view. Photo: Curt Jenner.

This research is supported by a grant of sea time on RV Investigator from the CSIRO Marine National Facility.

Be sure to follow the daily posts of our One Ten East Logs from the IN2019_V03 aboard RV Investigator at https://iioe-2.incois.gov.in and www.wamsi.org.au .

We are about to go through immigration and throw off our lines at 3pm. Great sunny day here in Freo. Hope the weather holds! This is the second log from the voyage. Daily logs will be posted on the WAMSI website during the month long voyage

By Lynnath Beckley

On 14^th May 2019, the Research Vessel Investigator will depart Fremantle on an oceanographic voyage to the 110°E meridian in the south-east Indian Ocean. This voyage will be following in the wake of the HMAS Diamantina, which in the 1960s, took Australian scientists to study the physical, chemical and biological oceanography of the same region as part of the first International Indian Ocean Expedition. During the 2019 voyage, which is Australia’s major contribution to the second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2), a multi-national team of scientists will repeat many of the measurements made nearly six decades ago to ascertain if there have been significant changes in the pelagic ecosystem near the western extent of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

The frigate HMAS Diamantina was the primary vessel used by Australian scientists during the first International Indian Ocean Expedition. Photo courtesy of the Queensland Maritime Museum.14

The HMAS Diamantina is the last remaining example of the British River Class frigates. Built in Australia and launched in 1944, the ship saw service in the latter part of World War 2 around Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Bougainville and Nauru before being paid off into the Reserve in August 1946. It was recommissioned in June 1959 as an Oceanographic Research Ship under the command of Lieutenant Commander Bruce D Gordon RAN. The ship carried scientists from the CSIRO but also assisted the Australian Army survey team along the north-west Australia.

Although there is now a new HMAS Diamantina 2 (a Huon Class Minehunter) in the Australian fleet, the legacy of the original vessel lives on as a popular exhibit in the Queensland Maritime Museum in Brisbane. Furthermore, her name is immortalised in hydrography with one of the deepest areas in the Indian Ocean, the Diamantina Deep (around 8,000 m depth) in the Diamantina Fracture Zone some 1,100 km south-west of Fremantle named after the ship. On the RV Investigator voyage the connection with the Navy has been maintained with Captain Curt Jenner AM and Captain Micheline Jenner AM conducting research on underwater sound and whales for the Australian Defence Force. This voyage is supported by a grant of sea time on RV Investigator from the CSIRO Marine National Facility.

Be sure to follow the daily posts of our One Ten East Logs at IIOE 2 and WAMSI

Today is loading day in the port of Fremantle and this is the first log from the voyage. Daily logs will be posted on the WAMSI website during the month long voyage.

By Lynnath Beckley

The second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE-2) is motivated by the need to advance knowledge about geological, oceanic and atmospheric processes and their interactions in the Indian Ocean because they influence millions of people around its rim. The Expedition aims to quantify how these dynamics affect climate, marine biogeochemical cycles, ecosystems and fisheries, both within the region, and globally.

At the annual IIOE-2 Steering Committee meeting in March 2019 in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, Prof. Lynnath Beckley, Chief Scientist of the upcoming RV Investigator voyage (IN2019_V03) was presented with the IIOE-2 flag.

Representing the co-sponsors, Dr Satheesh Shenoi from the Indian Ocean regional alliance of the Indian Ocean Global Ocean Observing System (IOGOOS) and Dr Peter Burkill of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) made the presentation and the flag will be proudly flown during the voyage.

The voyage which leaves from Fremantle on 14th May will be repeating the 110°E meridian line in the south-east Indian Ocean that was last examined in 1963 by Australian scientists aboard the HMAS Diamantina during the first IIOE. The IN2019_V03 voyage addresses several of the research themes in the IIOE-2 Science Plan, particularly those pertaining to human impacts on the Indian Ocean, boundary current dynamics, ocean circulation, climate variability and change and the unique physical, biogeochemical and ecological features of the Indian Ocean.

This research is supported by a grant of sea time on RV Investigator from the CSIRO Marine National Facility.

More information available at https://iioe-2.incois.gov.in/

One Ten East Logs from the IIOE-2 voyage aboard RV Investigator will be posted on the WAMSI website during the month long voyage.

Around 60 years ago, marine scientists aboard ships from 14 countries combined their efforts to explore the largest unknown area of earth, the deep waters and seabed of the Indian Ocean. This expedition generated a wealth of information and formed the basis of our scientific understanding about the Indian Ocean basin. So why do we need to do it all again?

An Australian voyage retracing part of the historic first International Indian Ocean Expedition expects to reveal the effects of climate change on the physics, chemistry and biology of the waters of the southeast Indian Ocean.

Professor Lynnath Beckley from Murdoch University is the Chief Investigator on this voyage of the second International Indian Ocean Expedition (IIOE2) which sets sail on Tuesday May 14^th from Fremantle, Western Australia.

Forty marine scientists and technicians from 18 institutions will spend 32 days at sea on the CSIRO Marine National Facility research vessel Investigator, sampling along the 110°E longitudinal meridian in the deep ocean, approximately 500-600 km offshore of the continent.

Professor Beckley said retracing the journey would provide a unique snapshot into how much the ocean and marine life had changed over time.

ABOVE: Chief Investigator Professor Lynnath Beckley gets ready to set sail  onboard the CSIRO Marine National Facility research vessel Investigator

“There is published scientific evidence that, in the past five decades, there has been surface water warming of over one degree Celsius in the south-east Indian Ocean” Professor Beckley said.

“There are also indications that the deepest, coldest waters in the ocean, those that are formed around Antarctica, are rapidly warming and freshening. These changed waters are moving towards the Indian Ocean and will have huge ramifications for global ocean circulation patterns.

“This expedition will provide some of the first ecological data about the oceanic food web in several of Australia’s recently established south-west and north-west marine parks, which extend out to the edge of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.”

The researchers will investigate the whole oceanic ecosystem including physical processes, bio-geochemistry, nitrogen sources, microbes, primary production, zooplankton, mesopelagic fishes, food webs and whales.

“Essentially, our multi-disciplinary team will be investigating everything we can from physics to fish with some whales on the side!” Professor Beckley said.

“Technology has advanced significantly since the first expedition and we now have the opportunity to discover how microbes contribute to the functioning of the Indian Ocean, which was not able to be studied last time because the genomics techniques were not yet developed”.

“We will also be checking the accuracy of satellite remote sensing of ocean colour by measuring levels of chlorophyll and other pigments in the water column. This will help us evaluate production by algae and carbon sequestering on an ocean basin scale.”

A team of scientists and postgraduate students from seven Australian universities – Murdoch University, Curtin University, University of Tasmania, University of Technology Sydney, Macquarie University, University of New South Wales and University of Western Australia – will accompany Professor Beckley on the 2019 expedition. Researchers from the University of Auckland, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Spanish National Research Council, Alfred Wegener Institute, NOAA, CSIRO, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Centre for Whale Research (WA) Inc.and the Australian Department of Defence will also be conducting research on board the voyage.

The voyage is a major part of Australia’s contribution to the UNESCO-led IIOE-2 mission and Australia’s Marine National Facility.

The voyage embarked on 14 May from Fremantle and returns on 14 June. More information on the second International Indian Ocean Expedition can be found at https://iioe-2.incois.gov.in/

Passionate marine science and radio astronomy leader Dr Bernard Bowen was the inaugural Chair of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (a joint venture between The University of Western Australia and Curtin University) Dr Bowen is renowned for being one of the country’s finest science administrators, presiding over scientific advances ranging from the oceans to the skies in a career spanning more than half a century.

He was Western Australia’s first government marine research scientist, analysing the State’s lucrative rock lobster fishery, and spent 24 years at the helm of the Department of Fisheries (formerly the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife) until 1991. He also played a significant role in the development of the WA Marine Research Laboratories and the WA Wildlife Research Centre.

Dr Bowen then went on to become deputy chair of the WA Environmental Protection Authority from 1994-1997, and served as chair from 1997-2003.

In 2005, at the request of the WA Government, Dr Bowen guided the establishment of the Western Australian Marine Science Institution (WAMSI) and was its founding chair.

He was instrumental in the establishment of ICRAR in 2009—serving as its founding chair until 2016—and helped bring part of the Square Kilometre Array telescope to Western Australia.

ICRAR executive director Professor Peter Quinn said Dr Bowen used his knowledge and experience to support WA science for more than 60 years.

“Bernard’s many, many accomplishments are a legacy that will benefit Western Australia for generations to come.”

“He was a great friend and colleague, and ardent advocate for science. His passing is a great loss to the science community and he’ll be greatly missed by all.”

Dr Bowen was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 1991 and was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal in 2003.

In 2011, he was inducted into the WA Science Hall of Fame, joining Fiona Stanley, Ian Constable, John de Laeter, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren.

The University of Western Australia awarded Dr Bowen an honorary Doctor of Letters in 2016, and in 2017, a minor planet was named in his honour.

This article was originally published by UWA. read the original article HERE