Seaperch Underwater Robotic Championships
This year the SeaPerch Program will celebrate a half decade of national underwater robotic championships. On the last Saturday in May, the fifth National SeaPerch Challenge will be held on the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMassD) campus where 150 teams of middle and high school students from across the country will compete on the national stage. The phenomenal growth of the event is evident with a simple look back to the inaugural National Challenge, staged in Philadelphia five years ago attracting 38 teams and 187 students.
America's Top Fishing Port Addresses Groundfish Crisis
The Port of New Bedford says it has released its 6-pronged plan to revive its historic groundfishery and modernize the port. According to the New Bedford Harbor Development Commission’s (HDC) "Groundfish Port Recovery and Revitalization Plan for the Port of New Bedford and Fairhaven," the region’s groundfish fishery stands to improve if fisheries scientists and managers apply similar video survey technology as that which helped revive the region’s now-successful scallop fishery. Along with soliciting grant funds to develop video surveys for groundfish, as the nation’s number one fishing port, the city has released its recommendations for modifications to the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), the Federal law governing all domestic fisheries management.
Fourth Ocean Energy Conference Set for October
New Bedford, MA - The New England Marine Renewable Energy Center at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, MA, announced that it is holding the 4th Annual New England MREC Technical Conference in Rhode Island on October 30-31, 2012. Moving from Massachusetts to Rhode Island will give the event room to grow. The new venue offers state of the art conference facilities and superb accommodations, which will be attractive and convenient to all participants and attendees. There will be two days of technical presentations on research relating to offshore wind, wave, tide, ocean and river current, environmental monitoring, policy and regulations. A Call for Abstracts will be out soon to solicit topics for presentations and poster sessions from professionals all over the globe.
Horizon Marine – Modeling Brazil Currents
Horizon Marine has initiated a Joint Industry Project (JIP) with two Eddy Watch – Trinidad/Venezuela clients and a modeling group at the of to develop a dynamic numerical model for predicting the migration of North Brazil Currents (NBC) rings towards . NBC rings are energetic, deepwater oceanic features that carry 3.0+ knot currents and significantly interfere with offshore operations as they travel northwest along the coast from North Brazil to . Utilizing surface drifters and satellite remote sensing, Horizon Marine has successfully tracked the formation, separation, and migration of 46 powerful rings that have shed from the NBC for 15 different companies since September 2001.
