Whatever Floats Your Research

Domitilo Nájera Navarrete stands ready to deploy a RAFOS float from the research vessel Pelican in the Gulf of Mexico. The glass-tubed floats sink to a specific depth and are swept along by currents, while they are tracked by an underwater array of sound beacons. This research program, called the Deep Water Dispersion Experiment, is jointly conducted by Paula Perez-Brunius at the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE) in Mexico and and Amy Bower and Heather Furey at WHOI. It was funded by CICESE to learn about the Gulf’s deep circulation in the event of an oil spill. (Photo by Mireya Mercedes Montaño Orozco, CICESE )