Double Sampling

On a June 2016 cruise aboard R/V Neil Armstrong, biologist Phil Alatalo tightens a bolt securing a safety harness for the Digital Autonomous Video Plankton Recorder (DAVPR), which is bolted onto the CTD rosette frame. The voyage collected information about the ocean’s biology and physical properties near the New England shelf break and slope, where currents and water masses meet. The CTD measures physical properties (connectivity, temperature, density) and the DAVPR images and identifies plankton in the water. Saving sampling time, researchers combined the two instruments into one package to collect simultaneous biological and physical data.(Photo by Carin Ashjian, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)