Rockland a Proud Partner of the 2021 AMAZOMIX Cruise
AMAZOMIX is a multidisciplinary oceanographic expedition exploring how the mixing of the Amazon River with the Atlantic Ocean impacts the biology, chemistry, and physics of the ocean. Indeed, the Amazon River plume carries large volumes of fresh, turbid, nutrient-rich water to a narrow coastal strip. It is a place of high phytoplankton production that has beneficial effects on the entire food chain – but also a place where turbulent processes can lead to an irreversible mixing of waters and changes to their properties along the coast. These interactions at the Amazon River outflow area affect many aspects of biodiversity, geomorphology, and physical processes.
To help better understand turbulent mixing, the scientific crew aboard the R/V Antea is deploying a physical oceanography instrument known as the Vertical Microstructure Profiler (VMP), made by Rockland Scientific. The VMP-250 measures the turbulence generated by eddies at a millimeter scale. Turbulent mixing is the physical process that causes different layers or bodies of water to irreversibly combine. Assessing how layers in the ocean interact is key to modelling many ocean processes including nutrient transport, atmospheric carbon absorption, deep ocean circulation, heat flux, etc. Measuring the mixing intensity of these processes will provide greater understanding of biological resources and climate change. On the AMAZOMIX expedition, the VMP-250 is linking ocean physics with ocean chemistry and marine biology.
Rockland is proud to be the only invited industry partner in this important and high-profile scientific campaign. It has always been part of the Rockland’s DNA to actively collaborate and empower scientists to achieve their goals by providing hands-on support. This will maximize the chances to collect good and valuable datasets with the Rockland Scientific instrumentation.
For more information, please check the official press release (https://cutt.ly/jQ91p13), or follow the campaign on Twitter: #AmazomixScience.
