Defence Island Temperature Data Recovery

 

February 22, 2015
The dive team of Dave Park, Scott Meixner, Paul Sim, and Roy Mulder dropped onto the Defence Island pinnacle bioherm and recovered the temperature logger installed there. Alex Askew ran the helm up top. Conditions where favorable for the advanced dive into the sponge beds. It was an impressive dive, with glass sponge beds on one side and seawhip forests on the other.

 

This project is ongoing at 5 different sites in Howe Sound.  The process of data recovery will continue over the next 5 years to collect continuous time series of temperature data. Future data analysis will examine relationships between bottom temperature and other physical data (e.g. surface temperature, flow rates, sponge growth rates, and live sponge coverage) in collaboration with the Vancouver Aquarium and academic partnerships.

 

Please help us with donations to continue our sponge research program 🙂