The Oregon upwelling system is a region of high biomass and primary
productivity as well as strong mesoscale variability. In order to examine the
interaction of physical forcing and ecosystem dynamics, four 3-week sampling
cruises were conducted in the Oregon upwelling system as part of the Northeast
Pacific Global Ocean...
Hydrographic observations were made over the continental shelf and slope off Oregon during the 1973 Coastal Upwelling Experiment (CUE-II) from three ships: R/V OCEANOGRAPHER, R/V THOMAS G. THOMPSON, and R/V YAQUINA. This report contains the observations made on four YAQUINA cruises between June and August 1973 (Table I). Observations were...
This dissertation focuses on the importance of pelagic subsidies in the Northeast Pacific to rocky shore community regulation. My results document the patterns of pelagic subsidy supply, determine if those subsidies are correlated with community structure, and examine if community regulation differs between areas of high- and low-subsidies. Understanding how...
Wind-driven coastal upwelling brings subsurface water onto the central-Oregon shelf after the spring transition each year. This cold and salty source water is oxygen-poor, yet above the hypoxic threshold, dissolved oxygen < 1.4 ml l⁻¹. Once on the shelf, dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations of upwelled near-bottom waters are modified by...
Two bloom-detection products were developed for the Oregon coast that describe the relative percent change observed between successive pairs of 8-day chlorophyll-a (CHL) and fluorescence line-height (FLH) products obtained from the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Aqua spacecraft (MODIS-Aqua). The CHL[subscript dev] and FLH[subscript dev] products, respectively, were optimized...
The high productivity of Eastern Boundary Upwelling Ecosystems (EBUE), some of the most productive ecosystems in the globe, is attributed to the nutrient rich waters brought up through upwelling. Climate change scenarios for coastal upwelling systems, predict an intensification of coastal upwelling winds. Associated with intensification in upwelling are biogeochemical...
Foundation species are important components of ecosystems because they provide habitat and ameliorate stressful conditions for residents. This thesis considers the role of surfgrasses (Phyllospadix spp.) as dynamic foundation species on the coast of Oregon in two studies. Chapter 2, which presents an observational survey of two Phyllospadix congeners, investigates...
Summertime, wind-driven upwelling off the Oregon coast delivers nutrient rich water to the surface that fuels the autotrophic production of particulate organic carbon (POC). This POC can be transported horizontally by fluid motions and vertically by sinking to the bottom where it can be entrained in the benthic boundary layer...
Euphausia pacifica, the North Pacific krill, is a key grazer in the California Current System and an important prey item for consumers such as salmon, seabirds, and whales. As a crucial link between phytoplankton and higher trophic levels, it is essential to understand both the behavior and bioenergetics of this...
Within systems characterized by substantial spatial and temporal variability, abundances of organisms tend to be higher in localized areas. Within the northern California Current system, the identification of such marine, biological hotspots would be of great importance to resource managers, conservationists, and research planners, and is consequently a growing area...
Various methods of presenting and mathematically describing particle
size distribution are explained and evaluated. The hyperbolic
distribution is found to be the most practical but the more complex
characteristic vector analysis is the most sensitive to changes in
the shape of the particle size distributions.
Particle size distribution, nutrient concentrations,...
This dissertation investigates the context-dependency of species interactions between seagrass and macroalgae in upwelling-influenced estuaries. In all coastal systems, nutrient loading is multidirectional, resulting from mostly freshwater and marine inputs. The directionality of nutrient inputs may affect the rate of supply of organic matter to the system. In systems where...
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2 – Do macroalgal blooms drive patterns of seagrass production in northeast Pacificupwelling
Phytoplankton are a sentinel class of organisms in the marine environment. Through their photosynthetic activity in sunlit waters worldwide, phytoplankton shape the health and productivity of marine ecosystems and impact the global climate. In this work a range of ocean sensing technologies (via ships, surf zone sampling, moorings, gliders, and...
Nearshore hypoxia within the Northern California Current (NCC) system is a seasonal phenomenon caused by coastal upwelling and occurs mainly during late-summer and early fall. The effects of low oxygen levels on fish and invertebrate communities, particularly during early-life history stages, however, are poorly known for this area. I investigated...
Understanding how large-scale processes (>100 kms) influence ecological communities is currently a major focus in ecology. In marine systems, coastal upwelling, a large-scale oceanographic process in which surface water pushed offshore by winds is replaced by cold, nutrient-rich water from depth, appears to cause variation in rocky intertidal communities. Along...
Diatom floral analysis of 116 sediment surface samples obtained off Peru reveals a boundary in the sediments between coastal upwelling influenced sediments and sediments outside the highly productive realm. Sinuous patterns of relative abundance for meroplanktic species (Actinocyclus octonarius, Actinoptychus senarius, and Cyclotella striata/stilorum) may preserve the meander-like patterns of...
This report presents observations from two programs in 1975, WISP and UP-75 to study circulation off Oregon. WISP was a study of the transition between the winter and spring regimes, and UP-75 was designed to determine whether there is a poleward undercurrent along the continental slope during the upwellinq season....
Temperature, salinity, density and turbulent dissipation profiles measured using the Rapid Sampling Vertical Profiler during the Coastal Transition Zone Experiment, July 1988.
In this report we will present vertical sections of temperature, salinity and sigma-t from both CTD and bottle casts made on legs 1-5 of the R/V Eastward during JASON, and from CTD casts made on legs 1, 2 and 4 of the R/V Melville and legs .2 and 4 of...
The area near Point Arguello has long been recognized as a location of strong
upwelling. A tongue of biologically active waters was observed in the earliest studies of
this region (Sverdrup and Allen, 1939). More recently, satellite estimates of chlorophyll by
the Coastal Zone Color Scanner (CZCS) on Nimbus-7 have...
The effects of wind forcing on coastal ocean circulation are studied using a
numerical modeling approach. The first region of interest is on the North Carolina
shelf, where the Coastal Ocean Processes (CoOP) Inner Shelf Study (ISS) took place
during August - November 1994. ISS observations are used to initialize,...
Past studies of the Oregon and Washington coast have shown a rapid change in the coastal ocean conditions with the onset of upwelling in spring. This process, called the spring transition marks the change from winter to summer conditions along the west coast of Unites States. To examine the interannual...
This is the second report of a study designed to establish the
current patterns and water mass characteristics existing along the
Oregon coast. Surveys reported on previously were concerned with
monthly samples from a maximum depth of 100 feet and out to 25 miles
offshore from Newport, Oregon. Since December...
During the W7711A cruise, from November 5 through November
13, 1977, a series of measurements were made on the hydrography, suspended particulate matter (spm), nutrients, first and second trophic level biomasses, primary productivity and zooplankton species for the purpose of gaining concurrent winter time information on these parameters. The cruise...
In eastern boundary current upwelling ecosystems, mesoscale circulation features such as eddies and upwelling filaments play a prominent role in the transfer of water and the associated plankton from the productive nearshore to the oligotrophic deep sea. The relationship between mesoscale circulation, zooplankton distributions, and the across-shelf transport of coastal...
This report presents data collected on six cruises made during the months May-October 1972 along the Oregon coast. Both complete data listings and sequential surface data contour charts are presented. The latter graphically display rapid changes in surface water characteristics on time scales as short as a few hours.
The...
Aanderaa recording current meters, moored off the Oregon coast at fixed depths measured water temperature, current speed, current direction and for some meters, conductivity and pressure. In addition to these subsurface meters, surface meteorological buoys were installed to measure wind speed, wind direction, air and water temperature. Data from each...
Aanderaa recording current meters, moored in CUE-I off the Oregon coast at specific depths along both the Newport hydrographic line and perpendicular to the isobaths off Depoe Bay, were set to measure water temperature, current speed, current direction and, in some cases, pressure. In addition, surface buoy meteorological stations were...
Salinity, temperature, oxygen, phosphate, and nitrate observations were taken by Oregon State University on 16 hydrographic cruises in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean during 1969. Alkalinity , pH and silicate were taken on special occasions. Nine cruises were taken along the Newport line. The rest were special cruises made off Depoe...
Published November 1973. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the Sea Grant Catalog: http://seagrant.oregonstate.edu/publications
As part of the GLOBEC Northeast Pacific Program, a Long Term Observation Program (LTOP) of repeated hydrographic observations along lines off Oregon began in September 1997 (Fleischbein et al, 1999). Of these lines, NH, off Newport, had been sampled frequently during the decade from 1961 to 1970, and another, FM,...
The Oceanbook focuses on the ocean environment from the coastline to roughly 200 miles offshore, the limit of U.S. jurisdic-tion, and from Cape Mendocino, California, to Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We excluded the intertidal area of interest to low-tide beachcombers from the Oceanbook because this area is well covered in...
Small pelagic fish represent a critical trophic link between plankton and large predators in marine upwelling ecosystems such as the California Current System. Populations of these fish are highly variable over time and are characterized by extreme fluctuations in abundance, which have significant ecosystem impacts. The causes driving
this instability...
Bi-weekly sampling of zooplankton and environmental parameters was conducted along a cross-shelf transect off the coast of Newport, OR, USA (44.65°N) from 1996 to present. Results have demonstrated the feasibility of using copepod community structure as an early indicator of ecosystem response to seasonal and large scale environmental changes in...
Interannual variability of Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas) occurrence in the northern California Current System is largely unknown. In Oregon, the distribution of this versatile predator and what is influencing their range expansion from Mexico is poorly understood due to the recent nature of their "invasion" and a lack of monitoring....
The data set presented here includes the discrete depth profile data and time series data
from the vertical profiling cruises carried out as a portion of the “Coastal Ocean Advances in Shelf Transport” (COAST) project. The primary purpose for collection of this data set was to calibrate the optical parameters...
Recruitment of larvae from the plankton is an important determinant of
community structure in marine systems. In populations of many marine species,
recruitment determines the basic demographic parameters of immigration, emigration,
and reproduction. Moreover, the effect of recruitment as an "ecological subsidy" can
determine the strength of interactions among species...