2015-10-07 Barkley Canyon Workshop Meeting notes

Review, Discuss, Identify, Prioritize:

What sites and systems must we re-establish? (short-term objectives by end of 2016)

• Laurenz: all of them, especially Wallyland
• Renald: all of them, junction box to enable instruments near corals would be interesting; oxygen optodes at all junction boxes;
• Karina: Upper Slope, pod 2; VPS
• Neus: all sites; pod 3 kept as experiment site: canyon, currents, oxygen
• Pauline: all pods; merge pods 3 and 4
• Marjolaine: axis, pod 2,
• Pere: VPS - very powerful tool should be set up for long deployment periods; pod 1 with additional instrumentation for studying sediment transport; avoid redundancy between pods 3 and 4
• Jakob: Wallyland, Wally;
• Jacopo: Wally;
• John: VPS, in current position, reduce the duty cycle to 1x/day
• Kristen: hydrophones and seismomter at upper slope; VPS with weekly CTD cast; all environmental data at Upper Slope
• Rick: VPS + 75kHz APCP, bottom pCO2, fluerescence/turbidity
• Question: what about equipment not mentioned?
  • Would be good to make lists of existing equipment; refer to lists from break-out discussions yesterday, engage community

What new alternative sites & systems would be most beneficial? (new ideas)

• Laurenz: Junction Box between coral cliffs and hydrate mounds
  • comment: corals may be impacted negatively by Wally and sediment
  • comment: perhaps do a feasibility study next expedition
  • comment: coral cliffs are too steep for Wally
  • comment: similar conditions in Europe, it is possible to be very careful
• Karina: going up/down canyon to head; mobile observations through canyon(?)
  • comment: 400-500m at convergence of canyon head branches
  • comment: Falkor data can be used to identify the good location
• Neus: up/down canyon
• Pauline: platform at head of canyon
• Marjolaine: pH; deep site on the slope – away from the canyon influence, at bottom of the OMZ (~1500-1600 m)
  • comment: is base of canyon too deep?
  • comment: camera needed there.
  • question: what would cost of a new branching unit be? (~$10 million)
    • comment: extension cable more viable than new branching unit and node
  • comment: perhaps at base of Clayoquot Slope might be a better deep site to bring an extension cable
• Annie: connect directly off the node (600 m) + a spare pod; begin idea of cabling The Gully to compare West Coast to East Coast
  • European Community may be a funding source
• Pere: turbidity meters at all sites; moorings up-canyon and down-canyon from pod 1; mooring should include turbidity meter and sediment trap – implies someone needs to be committed to processing the samples
• Jakob: USBL for Wally positioning; ultra HD camera on Wally (for both Science and outreach); resident AUVs provide potential for extending the science.
  • comment: why USBL over LBL? LBL could also be used. USBL is easier/cheaper to deploy – will provide very good relative positioning tool. But LBL could be a good solution
• Jacopo: re: Corals - lot of study on corals in EU; study within OMZ would be interesting; USBL positioning for Wally; instrumentation needed: acoustic cameras, hydrophones, photomultipliers, blue light metres, hyperspectral imaging,
• Tom: Defend the nodes! Can't have constant interruptions of the network. We may not be doing enough sampling – a way to do more physical sampling? What about CORKs in the region? Should we ask IODP to install a new CORK? Should we be mining the original core data. Biofouling prevention.
  • comment: if Wally had a manipulator, we could install elevators for sample recovery; have helio-Wally
• John: gliders, stand-alone moorings
• Kristen: broadband hydrophone array (with fix capability, better than bearing) with better S/N; accurate timing between instrument data; camera+hydrophone to study invertebrates with sound; autonomous mooring at same depth closer to canyon; 2nd upper slope location.
• Gwyn: turbidity
• Kim: UV laser attached to Wally
• Garry: seismometer at the base of the deformation front – all the way down to the toe
• Mairi: increased capacity to monitor sediment-water interface, into the shallow sediment: sediment cams; chemical/temperature probes; more standardized system for dealing with, tracking, assessing, collecting basic information about physical samples
• Rick: A1 mooring - autonomous, can loan us the equipment, we would need to deploy/recover (includes bottom ADCP with instrumentation at 35m, 100m, 500m)
  • question: would the data be shared as well?
    • of course.
  • EO1/Estevan mooring 100km north with 25-yr time series
    • comment: gliders would go hand in hand with these time series
• Renald: Movable pod to be moved around between permanent nodes

What are the scientific questions these systems would address? (both re-established and new ideas)

• Laurenz:
  • Are seeps important carbon sources with export production far into surrounding communities?
  • Can Barkley Canyon serve as experimental site for future carbon oceans low pH, low oxygen, ideal for climate change scientists?
  • Is Barkley Canyon an active conduit for aggregated organic carbon from the shelf?
  • Could all of Barkley Instrumentation be engaged like a research vessel for short-term campaigns, e.g. joined synchronized experiments with defined campaigns which result in reports/publications?
• Renald: better understanding organism distribution link to .... ; corals: study growth of corals within OMZ – are corals used as nursery habitat by other organisms?
• Karina: change of water between canyon/ocean; upwelling data; how are models doing? what's going into the canyon in terms of sediments?
• Neus: up/down canyon to extend biodiversity; pod 3: questions about food supply and animal colonization
• Pauline: species community variations, comparing head with base over time; population dynamics, food webs; sediment transport within the canyon
• Marjolaine: mechanisms of how environment affects species distributions; OMZ and climate change – how species adapt to low oxygen concentrations; parallels between Saanich Inlet and Barkley low oxygen zone – extinding some of Jackson's studies into the canyon
• Mairi: carbon production transprot, burial in the canyon; Laurenz's topics are subsets of that; Renald's movable pod for experiments – standard suite of background env data to go with experiments
• Pere: offshelf sediment transport into the canyon – sources; nepheloid layers; water column taken into account, surveys during storm events; how storms deliver sediment into the canyon; relation between OMZ and suspended particle distributions; (lisst, transmissivity); impact of bottom trawling activities on sediment dynamics
• INDEEP: canyon important habitat, but also OMZ and methane seeps – all three in one canyon: stydy boundaries how ecosystem function changes under influence of different environments
• Jakob: engineering science: great site for testing and validating robotic autonomous long-term systems; many more steps can be taken beyond Wally; outreach: BBC also interested in looking at biology, and BBC not the only ones interested. Broadcast/cinema quality imagery from the canyon; having the observatory is a unique opportunity
• Jacopo: enforce use network of cameras to study sablefishes – temporal/spatial distributions; class/size frequency distributions; recruiting site/ biomass concentration site – conservation ; integrated system management approach; hydrophones to evaluate predator/prey to promote conservation of Barkley Canyon; (need a control camera at 400m in order to study sablefish variations);
  • question: fish tagging + acoustic receivers?
  • ONC: create leadership in future development of science - model of work
  • Bentho-pelagic coupling, link horizontal movement with benthic component; tidal, day/night, seasonal fluctuations
  • use all instruments and calibrate
  • Acoustic monitoring of trawling activities
• Tom: hydrate system: how old is this canyon? How old are the hydrates? What is the stratigraphy of the canyon? How evolved in past and how evolving now? Erosional systems, turbidites, biological systems affected by those events. Need a sedimentary clock on the system. Paleo-earthquake studies extended northward from Washington.
• John: characterizing seasonal interannual variability in cross-shelf; transitions over seasons; water column monitoring
• Kristen: quantity and diversity of sounds good for classifier development; long-term ambient noise monitoring; marine mammal population density and dynamics; vessel interactions; study rare and endangered beaked whales (up to 200 kHz range); fish and invertebrate behaviour in relation to sound; second Upper Slope location and also autonomous hydrophone near or in canyon for comparisons.
• Gwyn: turbidity, sediment transport, both regular and event-based; slope stability;
• Seismic community: earthquakes, tsunamis, deformation, geodesy: need a quieter, simpler location; spare seismometer as deep as possible;
  • Martin H: variabilities that govern gas hydrates stability
• Rick: alongshore transport – California undercurrent - annual, seasonal variations; vps needed to study this; edge waves now being felt connected into the inlets - covariation between offshore and inshore, give insights on tsunamis; thermosteric anomalies (freely available pressure-inverted echosounders) - integrated climate change indicator;

Who is missing from the discussion and needs to be engaged?

• Laurenz: champions are needed for all of these topics. why are they missing? how can we attract them?;
• Martin H: gas hydrated dynamics community: champions needed
• Renald: someone from Woods Hole / Alvin, manned dives in Barkley
• Karina: DFO; also vertical migration community
• Marjolaine: Anna Metaxas;
• Mairi: carbon cycle people who are experts – marine component of carbon cycle especially; International Carbon Observing System; Dick Feeley
• Pere: Alex Hay, ; Barbara Hicke;
• Fabio: Craig Smith?, Andrew Thurber
• Tom: Japanese and Korean gas hydrate researchers, Japanese also for earthquakes and turbidity; University of Toronto EM/seismics lab
• John: water column group – totally disengaged because of the VPS; BPS researchers; glider community
• Kristen: Hervé Glotin; Xavier (JASCO), Frances Juanes, DFO (James Pilkington, John Ford), Tom Norris (Biowaves), LIDO, acoustics working group people (George Tzanitakis); Hal Whitehead (sperm whale expert at Dal); representatives of the ONC Data and Software teams;

Laurenz: Why should people be attracted? Turning Barkley into an experimental site. "Wally Licenses". Americans are forced to be attracted to the US system

Heesemann: Government hydrates researchers not allowed; ?researcher in Germany?

What are the existing and potential international collaborations?

• Laurenz: look at canyon research and gas hydrate research worldwide (homework)
• Marjolaine: Lenaick Menot/ ifremer;
• Mairi: Mediterranean canyon researchers
• Pere: INCISE community; (Symposium 25-27 July 2016 – how to engage with expedition installations); other submarine canyon researchers – convince them to go back to "Barkley Canyon as a playground"; UW CHuck Nittrouer, Andrea Ogston; MBARI/charlie paull; USGS Jinping Xu;
• Fabio: NZ some; Australia Thomas Schlacker; Perth University
• Jacopo: Jamstec; ICES
• Tom: NASA (treat ocean like new planet); robotics – industry partners (mining, O&G, hydrates); national corporations in Norway (petroleum exploration); Monterrey Canyon champions
• OOI investigators
• Kristen: SMRU at St Andrews University (Scotland) Sea Mammal Research Unit with lots of researchers and students, have interest and skills but lack data; Scripps (UCSD) Hildebrand lab; Woods Hole University; Biowaves;
• Richard: OTN, MBASRI, Tomography group; Jack Barth, Barbara Hicke, Craig Smith
• Maia: computer vision community; Alexandra; automated image analysis community; big data analysis communities

Build and Science Plan for Barkley Canyon

What needs to happen and when?

• ONC hopes to mobilize cable/node repair operations for may-jun 2016 (2-ship operation)
• Reinstall Barkley pods in July 2016 (except Vertical Profiling System)
• Within next 6 months, ONC putting together next operating funds proposal to Canadian Fund for Innovation (core supporter) 2017-2022 funding cycle; funding primarily for operations, some room for modest enhancements (including coastal infrastructure maintenance); major enhancements likely out of scope for funding
• let community participate in working groups, understand this is an active process

What are the timelines for the scientific observations?

Discussion

• Atlas/catalog/knowledge base/species lists/protocols/catalogue of samples: need to be compiled, collated
  • Kim suggested we should play an active role in getting supervised internships to support this work; planning for this fits in with development of the 2016-17 program plan; science plan draft hoped for by December
    
• High priority for metadata team is setting up storage for physical sample data; sample handling and analysis protocols should be adopted
• Another service to the community: document the cross-calibration between observatory methods and previous methods for all different types of systems – show case of why we think this approach is worthwhile – we need to write these comparative methodology papers (?special issue of Ocean Technology or another journal, examining all different instrument families in contrast with traditional methodologies
  • Feb 2016: VENUS celebrates 10-year anniversary – good opportunity to present methodologies, experiences, lessons learned
• Martin H: we need to remotely reconvene to decide what is realistically feasible – ONC compile the input and come up with alternatives and scenarios for the community to review and prioritize
• Richard: is this a zero-sum game, or can we leverage other supports such as additional ship time. 
  • Reality Check: in addition to prioritizing within Barkley Canyon, there is a broader prioritization across ONC locations
• Dwight: publication metrics very important, especially if we could complete publications during the next 6 months
• Pere: publish rapid-response papers for unexpected findings and observations – will greatly aid ONC publication metrics
• Richard: we should also be publishing data sets
• Jacopo: Sensors Basil open access journal: networks of sensors; data sets; processing; pre-processing
• Maia: undergraduate labs and HQP is an important metric ONC reports, so let us support you and tell us about these
• Alexandra: wants to do more publications on her work with computer vision and underwater imaging; also wants to build more collaboration with people interested in underwater vision applicaitons; also associated with Int'l Org for Pattern Recognition: would like to establish a technical committee dealing with problems with underwater pattern recognition; next year's conference will be in Cancun – paper submissions invited.

Here's what the Barkley Canyon research program looks like in 2017-2022

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