February 18, 2016
The R/V Thomas B. Thompson constantly measures current speeds during the cruise using an acoustic doppler current profiler (ADCP) mounted to the hull. The ADCP data also reveal the movements of fish and zooplankton as they move vertically in the ocean during diel vertical migrations. During the night, fish and zooplankton are near the surface ocean foraging for food. During the day, fish and zooplankton migrate to deeper depths to avoid visual predators.

The plot shows the ADCP data collected from the cruise so far… One of the daily migrations of fish and zooplankton is marked. Can you find additional signals of migrations in the data? (We were sampling in an area called Cherry Bank, which is really shallow. Cherry Bank is apparent in the plot as an absence of data.)

Posted by Allison