The appalling lack of data on the size, location, and characteristics of the infamous oil plumes in the Gulf led me to explore the efforts of a marine sciences org named Mote Marine that's conducting data collection of oil off the Florida coast.
Mote Marine does interesting stuff like fish and marine mammal tracking (check out the whale shark and the color of the water) and they operate an aquarium in Sarasota, Fla.
Now they're sending robots, which they term gliders, into the Gulf to gather data about oil flows into the precious shallow reefs of the Florida Keys and biologically rich sea grass regions near them.
On May 17, Mote Marine Laboratory scientists working in partnership with Rutgers University launched an underwater robot offshore of Southwest Florida to patrol the Gulf of Mexico for oil. The robot, called an autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, looks like a yellow torpedo and is equipped with a payload that can detect oil and the chemicals used to disperse it in the water.
Launched from a boat 20 miles west of Venice, the AUV will travel another 80 to 100 miles west-southwest, patrolling the Continental Shelf perpendicular to the coastline.
Thanks to a grant from the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice, Mote also has funding to launch another two gliders off Florida later this week. The first — nicknamed Nemo and owned by Mote — will look for oil about 15 miles offshore between Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor. The second — nicknamed Waldo and owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — is scheduled to be deployed to the Florida Keys, where it will search for oil in the Straits of Florida — the location oil might appear if it gets carried south by the Loop Current.
The robot subs glide up and down and side to side, taking samples, to build a 3-D image of plumes and events far below the surface.
The $100,000 robot follows a programmed track, surfacing every two to four hours to transmit via satellite to Mote staff in Sarasota real-time information about what's happening deeper in the water column.
Previously, satellite imagery tracking the spill could only show what is happening at the surface.
Many oceanographers suspect there may well be deeper plumes of oil that have not been detected.
"If we do get data indicating there may be oil or dispersants, we'll send out a boat with researchers to verify the findings," said Mote communications director Nadine Slimak.
Five goals of the effort are:
• conduct sampling of water, sediments, bottom dwelling organisms, and sea grass;
• conduct mollusk sampling (primarily clams and oysters);
• activate underwater robots to patrol the coast from south Tampa Bay to the Florida Keys for oil;
• sample the phytoplankton community;
• and create a detailed oil response plan that covers a number of different scenarios so that our area will be well-positioned to receive federal or British Petroleum funds.
You can help with donations although Mote's donation page does not specifically earmark the robot data project.