March 18th, 2019; Later in the day and into the evening.

Today we celebrated our scientific achievements as each student shared their oceanographic discoveries with their shipmates.  For the last six weeks we have sailed across, immersed ourselves in, and studied this small patch of ocean called the Caribbean Sea; and collectively we have learned so much.

In the field of acoustics, a soundscape can be defined as the combination of all of the sounds that occur in, and make up, an environment. When we think of the ocean, we can categorize these sounds into three main groups: biological (such as whales or fish), abiotic (natural sounds such as wind or rain), and anthropogenic, or human-caused (such as vessel noise).

With nearly 50 years of surface neuston tow data, SEA’s archives offer the unique opportunity to examine biological response to global change. SEA Semester leverages the opportunities presented by its remote, open ocean cruise tracks and repeated annual sampling to build valuable datasets in poorly studied areas of the world.

It’s hard to believe that we set sail just yesterday from our anchorage at Francis Bay, St. John. So much science has happened since! When we were leaving St. John, we took three surface samples to get an idea of how nutrients and chlorophyll change from inshore to offshore, stay tuned for those exciting discoveries.

Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will join this spring’s SEA Semester: Marine Biodiversity and Conservation (MBC) program on a special collaboration to explore the ocean’s mesopelagic or twilight zone, further augmenting one of SEA’s most advanced scientific undergraduate programs.

Jonathan Harris, C-112, is the winner of the 2019 Armin E. Elsaesser III Fellowship. Jonathan, a geologist and former SEA crewmember, is an education and outreach coordinator at Mississippi State University. Harris was selected from a field of 13 applicants.

This morning we anchored in Tobago Cays and prepared for our first survey off the Cramer. The area that we decided to survey is in a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Eager to get in the water after a couple of days at sea we all shuttled into the small boats and headed towards the reef.

If you’ve read all of our posts diligently, you may have noticed that we students have become much more than classmates. We often revel in the miracle of having met, wondering what it would’ve been like if we had chosen a different SEA program, or chosen a different way to spend this semester altogether.

Q: Kelsey, Congratulations!  Can you tell us more about what this means?  When did you apply, and how did you find out you had won?

A: Thanks!  It was a big surprise for me since it’s so competitive.  The Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) means that I have my own funding for graduate school so I can focus on my research.

SEA in the NEWS
National Geographic
Oct. 10, 2018
Beach clean-up study shows global scope of plastic pollution