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Simply Sophisticated

April 7, 2012

The crew aboard the USCGC Healy pushes a just-recovered mooring anchor away from the fantail during a 2011 cruise in the Chukchi-Beaufort Sea. While most mooring components are fairly sophisticated, the anchor is sometimes an old train wheel. On top of the anchor are the the acoustic releases (painted yellow)—the mechanisms that trigger the mooring to break away from the anchor and float to the surface. Scientists used the mooring to study the western Arctic ocean-atmosphere-ice system. (Photo by Donglai Gong, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)