Using a linear quasi-geostrophic model of large scale spiraling flow and vertical density gradient in the eastern North Pacific, we evaluate the complex dispersion relationships for quasi-geostrophic waves. Our calculations indicate that the geostrophic circulation of the eastern North Pacific can locally convert potential energy to mesoscale kinetic energy on...
Temperature, salinity, sigma-t and dissipation profiles from the Rapid Sampling Vertical Profiler for six transects as part of the Coastal Transition zone pilot experiment, June 1987.
The fall-winter surface current field off Oregon was determined by analysis of ten years of drift bottle data. Computer programs were developed for generating bottle tracks on a numerical grid, for interpolating bottle velocity components to fill void grid points and for smoothing irregularities in the velocity fields. Charts are...
The geopotential anomalies and the average meridional geostrophic
flow off Newport, Oregon, were computed from the data taken
during twenty-one hydrographic cruises.
The annual average of geopotential anomaly was 1.31 dynamic
meters with a seasonal variation of the order of 14 dynamic centimeters.
Highest values of geopotential anomaly occurred in...
A long and gradual transition between the summer and winter
oceanic regimes was observed off Oregon during the autumn of 1980.
Hydrographic sections and a single current meter mooring between
August and December show the ocean possessed characteristics during
fall that have not been observed during other seasons: a slow...
The physical characteristics of continental shelf waters off
Oregon during late winter and spring of 1975 are described and compared
with observations taken previously during summer. The currents
in winter are barotropic in the monthly means while in summer
the currents are baroclinic. Alongshore current fluctuations on the
time scale...
We sharpen our view of an eastern boundary current region during
the upwelling season through the analysis of several data sets.
We focus on the mesoscale flow field off of northern California,
observed during the Coastal Transition Zone (CTZ) experiment of 1988.
First, we estimate tidal currents in the region...
This report summarizes the Seasoar and CTD observations from Wecoma
cruises W9306A (5 June to 12 July, 1993) and W9308B (14 August to 22 September
1993) conducted as part of the Eastern Boundary Currents Accelerated Research
Initiative, under funding by the Office of Naval Research. The cruises were
designed to...
The distribution of herring (Clupea harengus pallasi) in
the Northeast Pacific extends from southern California to
northern Alaska. Studies on variation in herring life-history
are limited to local
characteristics and recruitment
populations or relatively restricted regions of the Northeast
Pacific. In this study I assessed herring life-history
patterns and recruitment...
Hydrographic and CTD measurements were taken from ninety-eight stations between Honolulu, Hawaii and Kodiak, Alaska from 4 May to 4 June 1984 on the second leg of the Marathon Expedition. This report consists of the cruise track, vertical sections, listings of all discrete hydrographic data, a subsample of the CTD...
Hydroacoustic tertiary (T-) waves are seismically generated acoustic waves that propagate
over great distances in the ocean sound channel with little loss in signal strength.
Hydrophone recorded T-waves can provide a lower earthquake detection threshold and an
improved epicenter location accuracy for oceanic earthquakes than land-based seismic
networks. Thus detection...
Published January 1979. 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
Revised January 1984. 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
Revised March 1989. 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
Blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus) are the largest of the baleen
whales. Blue whale calls were recorded off the coast of California in fall,
1993 and measured for frequency and time characteristics. On average, blue
whale calls lasted 16 s, swept down from 18.9 to 17.3 Hz and were
repeated every...
This report presents hydrographic and chemical data from the eastern
tropical North Pacific Ocean collected in January 1977 aboard Oregon State
University's (OSU) R/V WECOMA during Leg I of Cruise WELOC 77. The purpose of
the cruise, WELOC-77-I, was to investigate the distributions of dissolved nitrous
oxide and molecular hydrogen'...
This data report contains observations made from R/P FLIP as part of the first process-oriented NORPAX (North Pacific Experiment) experiment. The experiment was named POLE to indicate that the horizontal extent of sampling was small compared to the largest scale investigated in NORPAX.
The part of the experiment reported here...
This document is a summary of the March 1968 meeting to determine the cause of an oyster mortality incident. It answers several questions about criteria for establishing the causative organism and discusses programs for studying oyster mortalities.
Management strategies to prevent overfishing while achieving optimum yield vary according to the available data and life history of the fished stock. I evaluated two sets of management strategies for Pacific coast rockfish: strategies to set harvest limits for data-poor stocks, and strategies intended to protect the age structure of...
Under conditions of fixed N-limitation, as with most oligotrophic systems, the process of biological N₂ fixation (diazotrophy) is favored, provided the necessary trace elements and vitamins are sufficient. Despite the well understood contributions of N₂
fixation in oligotrophic regions, the nutritional and ecological controls of marine diazotrophs have not been...
The investigation described in this project will test the hypothesis that fluxes of carbon, barium, manganese, iron and uranium associated with fluid seepage at the San Clemente fracture zone significantly affect the geochemical budgets for these elements, and ultimately result in anomalously high benthic fluxes throughout the San Clemente basin.
In the past several years, international interest in gas hydrates in marine sediments has
increased considerably because of increasing recognition that the large volume of gas stored
in hydrates or trapped beneath them is a significant fraction of the global methane budget,
and may therefore be a source of energy...
Plate boundaries are commonly regions of complex, diffuse deformation with
the motion across the boundary accommodated by numerous structural systems, rather
than being narrow, discrete zones of deformation. One such boundary occurs where
the North American plate makes contact with Juan de Fuca, Gorda, and Pacific plates
along the west...
Deep-sea bamboo coral (Isidella sp.) SE000901A from the southern Oregon coast (water depth 1048m) provides a high-resolution record of variability of North Pacific Intermediate Water (NPIW) and carbon rain to the sea floor, related to coastal upwelling, from 1808 to 2000AD. Counting of annual layers in magnesium to calcium (Mg/Ca)...
This report presents observations from a single mooring of velocity, temperature, conductivity, and pressure, made as part of the Ocean Storms experiment, conducted in the N.E. Pacific Ocean (47° 25.4' N, 139° 17.8' W) from August 1987 to June 1988. The mooring contained a total of 14 current meters, 4...
The time-averaged velocity field in the North Pacific was estimated in two
sets of inverse calculations. The planetary geostrophic equations were the basis for
dynamical models of the flow in each case. The inverse estimates of the circulation
were obtained by minimizing a positive-definite cost function, which measured the
inconsistency...
By implementing a series of mass-conserving nested high-resolution models down to approximately 1 km resolution that have realistic bathymetry, coastline, wind forcing and river run-off, the winter 1996-1997 shelf flow near Cape Mendocino, California, is simulated and compared with available observations from the Strata Formation on Margins (STRATAFORM) marine geology...
The FRONTS-80 experiment is a joint investigation supported by the
Office of Naval Research (ONR) as the lead agency with additional contributions
from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA),
the National Space Administration (NASA), the U.S. Navy and the Canadian
Forces. Support from these agencies is gratefully acknowledged. We...
Understanding and modeling microbial responses and feedbacks to climate change is hampered by a lack of a framework in the pelagic environment by which to link local mechanism to large scale patterns. Where terrestrial ecology draws from landscape theory and practice to address issues of scale, the pelagic seascape concept...
The primary objectives of R/V Wecoma cruise W9907C were to: 1) collect threedimensional fields of temperature, salinity, and light absorption and attenuation using the towed, undulating vehicle SeaSoar; 2) collect 3-D fields of velocity using shipboard ADCP; 3) to make turbulence profiles along a single cross-shelf transect; and 4) locate,...
1-km MODIS observations of ship tracks off the west coast of the U.S. are used to characterize changes in cloud visible optical depths, cloud droplet radii, cloud cover fraction, and column cloud liquid water amount as low-level marine clouds respond to particle pollution from underlying ships. This study re-examines the...
Predators must consume enough prey to support costly events, such as reproduction. Meeting high energetic requirements is particularly challenging for migrating baleen whales as their feeding seasons are typically restricted to a limited temporal window and marine prey are notoriously patchy. We assessed the energetic value of the six most...
In this thesis anomalous downcore shallowing of paleomagnetic
inclinations is interpreted to be caused by sediment compaction. Thus,
compaction-induced inclination shallowing may influence tectonic
reconstructions that are based on inclinations from deep-sea sediment
cores.
Progressive downcore shallowing of the remanent inclination was
observed in a 120-m section of Plio- Pleistocene...
This study investigated long-term (1961-2008) changes in albacore (Thunnus alalunga) abundance and distribution in relation to local environmental and large-scale climate indices in the Northeastern Pacific using time series and spatial analyses. Prior to the time series analysis, a wavelet analysis was conducted to examine nonrandom patterns of cyclical variability...
Published July 1976. Facts and recommendations in this publication may no longer be valid. Please look for up-to-date information in the OSU Extension Catalog: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog
North Pacific albacore (Thunnus alalunga) is a highly migratory and
commercially valuable species of tuna. All stock assessments and management
decisions for North Pacific albacore are presently based on the assumption of a single,
uniform stock. However, a growing body of evidence from diverse sources suggests
that there are two...