National Science Foundation Grant Helps 米兰体育 Study Inlets
Galloway, N.J. - Anna Pfeiffer-Herbert, associate professor of Marine Science, studies the exchange of water between the ocean and the bay through inlets. This summer, she and a team of research interns are looking at the two inlets flanking the 18-mile stretch of Long Beach Island with funding from a $155,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.
Pfeiffer-Herbert, who grew up in Acme, WA and now resides in Galloway, uses a simple analogy to explain the importance of understanding how long it takes water to exit the bay through an inlet.
Imagine a toilet or a sink. If you never flush it out, the water will get stagnant. If that happens in the bay, things will start to grow. A lot of nutrients are coming in from land drainage and if excess amounts of nutrients are staying in one place, they cause excess organic matter to decompose and that can clog up water systems and decrease oxygen in the water," said Pfeiffer-Herbert.
The flushing rate in the bay impacts the health of the ecosystem that wildlife and humans depend on for habitat, recreation, commercial fishing and ecotourism.
The combination of a data set that describes water quality and a data set that describes how fast water flushes out of the bay at two different inlet types allows researchers to better understand how inlets work.
The research team is working with the 米兰体育 Marine Field Station to collect water velocity and water quality data at both inlets.
Six Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs), one in Barnegat Inlet and five at Little Egg Inlet, sit on the bay floor and record water velocity and direction. Conductivity Depth Temperature (CTD) sensors are deployed at the six research sites to capture water quality data and are connected to large floating buoys.
Steve Evert, director of the Marine Field Station, and Nate Robinson, Marine Field Station assistant, conduct seasonal surveys where they pull a boat-mounted ADCP with the R/V Petrel along set lines for the duration of a full tidal cycle (about 12 hours of mapping) at both inlets.
Lessons Come To Life on the Water
Undergraduate students get the chance to bring their textbook lessons to life on these survey trips.
Students collect water quality data with a handheld CTD instrument that is lowered into the water via a rope.
Kyle Dantas, a sophomore Marine Science major, is intrigued by how the ocean influences Earth鈥檚 climate and plans to go to graduate school to study climate change. He got involved in Pfeiffer-Herbert鈥檚 research because he wanted an opportunity to 鈥済et my hands dirty and learn precisely how things work.鈥
Field Work Prep on the R/V Petrel
Dantas felt just how dynamic the ocean can be during a survey that took place after a passing storm. The winds resulted in choppy water and that was felt in the rocking from the boat, he recalled.
The research opportunity gave Katelyn Seay, a senior transfer student majoring in Marine Science with a concentration in Marine Biology, her first boating experience. 鈥淚 loved it,鈥 she said.
Seay was on two morning surveys where she used the CTD to collect data.
Sharks captured first-year student Samantha Gransee鈥檚 attention from a young age and guided her to choose Marine Biology as a major. Gransee helped to assemble the tripod structure that the ADCP sits in on the bay floor and was on a survey where she saw how the side-mounted ADCP is deployed.
Nicole Ertle, a Marine Science graduate currently in the Coastal Zone Man