Researchers from Nova Southeastern University’s Oceanographic Center (OC) recently participated in a three-week field campaign in the Gulf of Mexico that centered on the fate of oil that is released into the environment. As a part of this study, NSU researchers also took sea surface and subsurface samples to aid in a NSU project that is currently funded by a President’s Faculty Research and Development grant.
Alexander Soloviev, Ph.D., a professor at NSU’s OC, traveled to the Pensacola-Destin area as part of the Consortium for Advanced Research on Transport of Hydrocarbon in the Environment (CARTHE) research team. Accompanying Soloviev on the research trip were Bryan Hamilton and Cayla Dean, two OC graduate students. CARTHE’s purpose is research that will help predict the fate of oil that is released into the environment and help inform and guide response teams. These predictions can help minimize oil spill damage to human health, the economy, and the environment. Data was collected using ocean drifters that were deployed in various locations and by the release of dye to track water flow patterns.
Presentations by the NSU team on the results of this project will be reported at the GoMRI Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference in Mobile, Alabama (January 26-28, 2014) and at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii (February 23-28.)