Development of a Free-Fall Fluorescence Imaging and Acoustic Microstructure Profiler

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This proposal seeks funds to develop a free-fall system for the observation of physical and planktonic microstincture in the ocean. A major problem in acquiring uncontaminated data is the relative motion between the ship and the sea, in particular, ship heave. In spite of several different designs, the hydrowire linking the instrument to the ship causes motion of the instrument package. This induced motion may be stirring the microscale optical structures that we are trying to measure and contaminating measurements of zooplankton swimming behaviors. The ideal platform for making these observations is a fxee-falling system which would be uncontaminated by ship motion. Such a system will acquire physical and biological data in the undisturbed waters ahead of the instrument package giving a three-dimensional view of the structures and dynamics of plankton on the scale of the organisms ambits. The information generated by this combination of optical and acoustic imaging will be unique and fundamentally alter the way we view the oceanic plankton.