Okeanos Explorer (EX1006): Hawaii to San Francisco Transit to Drydock

The Okeanos Explorer (EX) will transit from Honolulu, HI to San Francisco for the winter inport and drydock period. During the transit, the EX will perform 24-hour multibeam survey, deploy XBT casts every six hours, and test a sub-bottom profiling instrument. A two-part project, CAMEO: Trans-Pacific Plankton Comparison 2010, through Survey of Opportunity Requests has been accepted to be performed during the transit. For the first part, the EX will tow a Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) to collect phytoplankton and zooplankton samples across a long transect to describe species composition and evaluate diversity gradients, and to estimate species occurrence at the surface. For the second part, the science team will deploy a Manta net and scoop a bucket (for tiny particles) approximately four times a day to sample the surface layer for marine debris typically seen in this area of the Pacific for enumeration and chemical analyses.