Preparing for the Cook Islands Trip!

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In collaboration with our OpenROV/OpenExplorer friends from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the United Kingdom, Cal State Channel Islands will be travelling together to the capital island of Rarotonga, and then to a more remote island, Aitutaki. This trip is a multi-faceted research, education and service trip. We will be brining a group of roughly 24 university faculty and students to provide support the native people of the Cook Islands with scientific investigation to the marine ecosystem health with the goal to establish long term ecosystem monitoring. We have many projects that are planned for this trip, and will be breaking into small teams. This blog will cover the Remotely Piloted Systems aspect.
We will use OpenROVs to survey the lagoons and coral reefs, with an added twist. Guy Trimby from the Plymouth Marine Laboratory has been developing a system to detect novel fluorescent proteins which we suspect are present in the corals. These proteins are important because they can be used for the detection of biochemical markers which have a huge implication in research and in medicine. Paul Spaur the leader of our Aerial and Aquatic Robot Research team has been working to set up an ROV that is capable of supporting the payload. In addition to that, Paul has been building a fixed wing UAV and will be doing aerial mapping of the coastlines and patch reefs. We will be also doing terrestrial mapping of total biomass, agriculture, and other aerial surveys.
Other teams will be doing more traditional vegetation, sandy beach, snorkel, and ecotoxicology surveys!

We will have greater coverage and pictures of our endeavors available on our blogs:
Remotely Piloted Systems aarr.piratelab.org
General Research and Travel Blog cooks.piratelab.org

Some history

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After I got over the shock of getting accepted to go on this amazing trip I first started to look at the history of the islands. I found it interesting that the British captain whose name was James Cook, that found the islands in 1773 named the group of islands Hervey Islands. It didn’t get […]

Accidents beget more accidents…especially in Deepwater

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Here is an interesting poster from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (one of the daughter regulatory arms of the Interior Department birthed from the now dead Minerals Management Service in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon blowout).

BSEE analysts have used inspection and accident incident reports from 2011 through 2014 to show that (surprise, surprise) a dangerous work place last year is also a dangerous workplace this year.  Perhaps more interesting is the fact that our low-rig density region in the deeper offshore waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico have an aberrantly high number of accidents.


The red blobs in this figure are abnormally high frequencies of accident regions.  See this legend:

 +4SD is really, really high.

What can we take away from this?  Offshore drilling is dangerous to be sure.  But deep- and ultradeepwater drilling is manifestly different from the more common shallow water drilling efforts.  Regarless if this is due to the inherent logistical difficulties of such deep drilling, the greater complexity and coordination that must be manifest, the relative naïveté of the operators in this new frontier, or the increased pressure for results and profit that follow in the wake of the intense capital outlays that are required to play in these worlds, it all amounts to greater risk and a more dangerous oil extraction endeavor.

See a webpage about this BSEE data here.

Note: there are no authors listed on the poster, but the program attributed the work to Allison Fischman of BSEE.

Here is that overall poster:


This poster was presented at the ESRI Users Conference in San Diego on July 20, 2015.

Ethnobotany

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Medicinal Plants of the Cook Islands Link to an interesting article on uses of plants in the Cook Islands. Click on the plant below: Saltbush (Scaevola taccada)  

Looking Forward

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When I first found out I was selected for this trip I immediately started looking up the Cook Islands’ biodiversity.  I found bird checklists and I found that my favorite species of crab, the fiddler crab, could be found in the Cooks.  I also found that two species of albatross frequent the islands.  I cannot […]

The Mangaia Kingfisher

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This species of Kingfisher is endemic to Mangaia Island, the southern most Cook Island. Despite it’s relations, this species does not usually eat fish. Most of its diet consists of lizards and skinks. This species’ mating habits are also different than most, they often breed in pairs or trios and switch between polygyny, polyandry, and […]

Welcome Fall 2015 Students

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Happy Summer! Information for each of my ENGL 105 courses this fall is available via the menu on the left hand side of this page. Please select the link for the course in which you are enrolled to access the syllabus, course calendar, learning modules, and so forth.

Stay tuned for information on reading to complete before our first day of class. If you’d like a sneak peek, check out Learning Module 1 for your class. Thanks and see you soon!

Dr. ADolphin Image

 

In one week…

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Even here at the ESRI Conference in San Diego, the Cooks are on my mind. One more week!  I hope everyone is ready!   

Project 3

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Project 2

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