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Funny Name, Serious Mission

January 2, 2012

Engineering Assistant Jim Dunn (foreground) lowers a benthic acoustic release frame (BARF) into the test tank at WHOI’s Coastal Research Lab while colleagues Eric Drange (left) and Jeff Pietro observe. Designed by Senior Engineer Don Peters, BARF houses the anchor for a surface mooring and provides a structure to which instrumentation can be attached. The hollow tubes provide buoyancy and the entire frame floats to the surface when an acoustic release is triggered from the surface. BARF will be used in moorings in the Pioneer Array, a next-generation coastal observatory off Cape Cod designed to continuously monitor ocean conditions.(Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)