Welcome back to the NF1502 blog! Today the
NOAA ship Nancy Foster comes into port at San Miguel in Cozumel, Mexico! This marks the end of leg 2 and
means more personnel exchanges, sample-fixing, plankton net cleaning and some
engine fixing too! It also means reconnecting with small luxuries such as
walking for more than a few yards at a time! Woo!
Before the
scientists get a break from “life at sea,” let’s get to know one of our
scientists who is returning to her land-duties soon: Elizabeth (“Libby”) Johns!
Libby is an oceanographer at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, FL. She shared with the blog: “I am a physical oceanographer, which means that I study ocean currents and water properties to try to determine where the water is going, where it is coming from, and why?!! (What is forcing this ‘flow’ pattern). I have concentrated most of my efforts in the past ten years on studying south Florida’s coastal waters, and also on working with scientists from NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center to figure out how regional oceanographic patterns affect the abundance, variety, and distribution of larval reef fish in the Caribbean Sea (USVI and Mexico ). Our research-group is particularly interested in how much connectivity there is between various fish spawning areas due to their proximity to ocean currents, and also how other oceanographic factors such as eddies (circular current patterns) can increase local larval retention.”
Libby has been on many research surveys
in her career, but she said that “I am especially excited about cruise NF1502
because it will fill a gap in our coverage of the Caribbean. Previously, we have studied the Meso-AmericanBarrier Reef (off the Mexican and Belizean Yucatan Peninsula) and much of the northeastern
Caribbean including the US and British Virgin islands. But this time we will be able to do our
oceanographic and net tow sampling along the south coast of other islands in
the northwestern Caribbean, which will add another valuable piece to the
“puzzle.”
We have sailed with Libby in multiple occasions aboard the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster and also aboard the NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter and we hope to continue collaborations between our research groups!
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| Libby, in the "dry lab", acquiring data from a conductivity-temperature-depth (“CTD”) instrument. She is also communicating with the winch operator through the ship’s radio system to raise, lower, and halt the vertical motion of the instrument |
Libby is an oceanographer at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML) in Miami, FL. She shared with the blog: “I am a physical oceanographer, which means that I study ocean currents and water properties to try to determine where the water is going, where it is coming from, and why?!! (What is forcing this ‘flow’ pattern). I have concentrated most of my efforts in the past ten years on studying south Florida’s coastal waters, and also on working with scientists from NOAA’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center to figure out how regional oceanographic patterns affect the abundance, variety, and distribution of larval reef fish in the Caribbean Sea (USVI and Mexico ). Our research-group is particularly interested in how much connectivity there is between various fish spawning areas due to their proximity to ocean currents, and also how other oceanographic factors such as eddies (circular current patterns) can increase local larval retention.”
We have sailed with Libby in multiple occasions aboard the NOAA Ship Nancy Foster and also aboard the NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter and we hope to continue collaborations between our research groups!
For more on ocean patterns (a.k.a. circulation) and how it affects fishes, check out this free online-book from Dr. A. Bakun!
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