Project: Collaborative Research: Autonomous Lagrangian Floats for Oxygen Minimum Zone Biogeochemistry

NSF Award Abstract:
Intense oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) of the world's oceans, though constituting a small fraction of total oceanic volume, host critical biogeochemical processes and are central to understanding the ocean's N cycle and its biogeochemical and isotopic signatures. OMZ's are sites for a large portion of marine combined N loss to N2 (25 to 50%) and dominate the ocean N isotope budget through cogeneration of 15N and 18O enriched NO3 -. Major outstanding issues include the magnitude of this N sink, the stoichiometry between NO3 - loss and the production of biogenic N2, the microbial pathways leading to N2 production, as well as the interaction between these OMZ processes and the surface export of organic matter as well as physical circulation.

The PI's request funding to develop a new, in situ, autonomous tool for studying N loss in OMZ's. It will allow observation of variability over a range in temporal and spatial scales that are critical for understanding controlling processes and better estimating the magnitude of N-loss. The sustained deployments possible with autonomous platforms will be critical for detecting any response of OMZ's to climate change.

Broader Impacts: Nitrogen is often the limiting nutrient for biological production in the oceans, and the current global marine nitrogen balance has been in much debate due to a number of uncertainties and questions. A successful development of this proposed sensor-float package may help in resolving some of the important questions on the spatial and temporal variabilities of the OMZs. In turn, such knowledge is essential in assessing the global nitrogen balance in the current and future oceans. This proposed project would involve active participation of undergraduates, graduates and postdocs, as well as the training of a K-12 science teacher. This project would also foster collaboration with international researchers. The PI's have partnered with Ocean Explorium at New Bedford Seaport to provide an educational outreach component designed to aid teacher development and create a field trip program for teachers in the south coast of Massachusetts. The proposal will support post-doc, graduate and undergraduate students.