{"id":4270,"date":"2016-01-11T21:31:46","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T02:31:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2016\/04\/21\/setting-sail-to-study-one-of-earths-last-coral-wildernesses\/"},"modified":"2022-11-07T14:41:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-07T19:41:22","slug":"setting-sail-to-study-one-of-earths-last-coral-wildernesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/setting-sail-to-study-one-of-earths-last-coral-wildernesses\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting sail to study one of Earth’s last coral wildernesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sam Hill \u201916 didn\u2019t see as many neighbors as he\u2019d hoped during his 1,600-mile summer sailing trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Hawaii to the equator, there was nothing but a turtle and a pod of whales,\u201d said Hill, a computer science major from Richmond, Va.<\/p>\n

As part of an eight-week Sea Education Association program, \u201cProtecting the Phoenix Islands,\u201d Hill spent six weeks sailing aboard the 134-foot-long Sailing School Vessel (SSV) Robert C. Seamans, from Honolulu to the Phoenix Islands in Kiribati and on to American Samoa.<\/p>\n

The focus of the trip was The Phoenix Island Protected Area (PIPA), a largely-unexplored expanse of marine and terrestrial habitats in the Southern Pacific Ocean and the largest designated Marine Protected Area in the world, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).<\/p>\n

The stretch of ocean, about the size of California, contains about 200 known coral species, 500 fish species, and 18 marine mammals. It was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. SEA, based in Woods Hole, Mass., has described the area as \u201cone of the last coral wildernesses on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBetween our expeditions last year and what we\u2019re up to this year, SEA Semester students have had a hand in developing most of the existing knowledge about the oceanography of this area,\u201d said Jan Witting, SEA Semester professor of oceanography and chief scientist for the voyage. \u201cIt\u2019s valuable knowledge that will go directly to help make management decisions about the future of PIPA, and helping to gather it on board our ship is also a terrific learning experience for our students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hill\u2019s research with four other undergraduate students centered on Winslow Reef, an underground sea mountain in PIPA with a unique topography. They created a three-dimensional model of the reef and assessed current flow, salinity levels, chlorophyll a concentrations, and zooplankton density around the area.<\/p>\n

\"3-D<\/a>

3-D Model of Winslow Reef<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important to begin to consider the effect seamounts such as these may have on current flow and productivity and diversity levels on the oceans ,\u201d Hill and his fellow researchers wrote in a 22-page paper of their findings. \u201cFurther studies around Winslow and other such seamounts will be the vital next step in understanding more about the dynamics of ocean environments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hill also received an introduction to the basics of oceanography and learned how to navigate the ship the old-fashioned way, plotting points on a map, using the stars, and mathematical calculations.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn average day is hard to come by and is surely not missed\u2026 One day was with our main engineer where I learned about the engines and the build of the ship, then promptly after applied these skills to help fix a leak on our starboard generator,\u201d Hill said. \u201cIn this first week aboard, the crew and myself have learned to sail and handle the ship as well as perform the scientific deployments and processing needed for our research.\u201d<\/p>\n

While aboard the vessel, Hill assisted in deploying three Argo floats, oceanographic monitoring buoys that collect data over several years and help scientists to understand the oceans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to learn about the ocean, it\u2019s the most-hands on you can get,\u201d Hill said of the program.<\/p>\n

During his trip, Hill also had time to enjoy the simpler things of life, including playing his ukulele and cloud watching on the deck.<\/p>\n

With all those miles of open sea, \u201cit makes looking at clouds very interesting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sam Hill \u201916 didn\u2019t see as many neighbors as he\u2019d hoped during his 1,600-mile summer sailing trip. \u201cFrom Hawaii to the equator, there was nothing but a turtle and a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":4271,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,33,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-computer-science","category-undergraduate-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}