A trio of Maryland scientists are headed to the Gulf of Mexico this summer to see how the massive oil leak there has affected the northern Gulf's fish and the crittters on which they feed.
The expedition, planned in late August, will be led by Michael Roman, director of the Horn Point Laboratory near Cambridge. Others from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science will be oceanographer William Boicourt and assistant research scientist James Pierson.
The scientific team will tow a sensing device called a Scanfish (seen above) behind the research vessel to measure temperature, salinity, oxygen and zooplankton, the small animals that make up the base of the marine food web. They'll also sample the water for oil, and scan the depths for fish.
Maryland scientists use the same gear routinely to assess water quality in the Chesapeake Bay, which like the Gulf suffers from oxygen-starved dead zones. The team actually had been sampling the Gulf for the past five years, for a comparison.
"In previous years, we've been able to assess the effects of low oxygen bottom waters on the living resources in the northern Gulf of Mexico," Roman said in a news release. "We hope to shed light on the environmental consequences of the spill by comparing data to those previous research cruises."
The fate of the Gulf's fish populations are of more than local interest, as the region accounts for 20 percent of all U.S. commercial landings and supports nearly a quarter of all the recreational fishing jobs in the country. Whether we realize it or not, Marylanders often eat crabs and oysters caught in the Gulf, as well as shrimp and even some finfish. The shutdown of fisheries there as a precaution against contamination already has had some impact on prices and supply of seafood in the region.
The crew for the expedition, which is underwritten by the National Science Foundation, will include researchers from Oregon State University, Eastern Carolina University and University of Akron. For more on the cruise, go here.
(Photo of Scanfish being deployed on Chesapeake, courtesy UMCES)