The Gemma Spreads its Wings
Oceanographic research isn’t typically on the “to-do list” for the MBL’s collecting vessel, The Gemma. But one bright, sunny day last month, the crew was happy to take it on.
Lily Tamash, a science and technology teacher at Barnstable High School, sailed on the Gemma on October 24 in order to launch a marine drifter, an instrument that tracks ocean currents via satellite telemetry. Her 9th grade students in the school’s Environmental Science and Technology pathway built the instrument, which was provided through MIT Sea Grant.
“We launched the device roughly eight miles south of Marthas Vineyard,” said Nolan Gibbons of the MBL’s Marine Resources Division.
The device records location updates every few hours to provide data on ocean currents. This data feeds to the Student Drifters Program, which was founded by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole. The program is currently tracking dozens of student drifters for various research purposes, including several in Massachusetts Bay and surrounding waters to visualize where marine debris and pollution will ultimately end up.
During the Gemma’s return trip, the crew conducted its normal squid collecting activities off Menemsha. Noah Martin, a Ph.D. student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and in the lab of MBL Senior Scientist Joshua Rosenthal, was on board and did squid dissections. Martin is investigating whether different bottom temperatures impact certain RNA editing processes in squid.
“This trip was a great highlight of the Gemma’s capabilities as a research vessel, beyond normal collection activities and class trips,” Gibbons said.
