The InterRidge Office has received news from a U.S. research cruise at the East Pacific Rise 9ºN Integrated Studies Site. The LADDER III cruise, led by Chief Scientist Lauren Mullineaux from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is underway (13 Nov - 3 Dec 2007) on R/V Atlantis with the research submersible Alvin. LADDER is an acronym for LArval Deep Dispersal on the East Pacific Rise. The LADDER project is truly interdisciplinary, merging the expertise of biologists, physical oceanographers, and modelers to understand how larval behaviors interact with topographically-influenced flows on mid-ocean ridges. The main objectives of the LADDER project are to determine how these interactions affect dispersal trajectories, maximal dispersal distances, and relative probabilities of larval supply to natal versus remote hydrothermal vents. Other PIs on this NSF-sponsored research include A. Thurnherr (LDEO), J. Ledwell and D. McGillicuddy (WHOI), and J. Lavelle (PMEL, NOAA). Several other projects are also being conducted during the LADDER III cruise, including a collaborative study with an Austrian group led by Monika Bright and an investigation of microstructure and turbulence led by Lou St. Laurent (FSU) and A. Thurnherr.
Background information and daily dispatches from the cruise are posted online:
http://www.whoi.edu/science/B/atlantis-15-26/.
This website was created by Skylar Bayer, an undergraduate student from Brown University. The website is unique in that it was designed for high school students to follow the cruise and learn about oceanographic research from a scientist and student’s perspective.
