research will continue important gulf datasets this research cruises science objective was following up on and continuing work that began around the time of the deepwater horizon oil spill in 2010 some of that research was supported by the gulf integrated spill research program (gisr) theres a grid of sampling stations that we sampled during several gisr cruises to study the transport of the oil in the gulf yvon-lewis said what were doing with this current research is using that footprint as our base to set up the set of measurements that were going to make on these new cruises we will continue that time series and make it a long-term time series to better understand that transport along the slope in the northern gulf of mexico were very excited about it that long-term time series could potentially inform future oil spill responses giving scientists baseline data and a better understanding of how oil or other pollutants move through gulf waters one of the things that had really shown through in the deepwater horizon response was the fact that there was a lack of prior baseline measurements she said and right now there isnt a mechanism to have those baseline measurements set up in the gulf with these cruises this would be one way that we could do that the students onboard were responsible for working in 12-hour shifts during which they collected a full suite of hydrographic and water samples using a ctd rosette and niskin bottles we did full water column profiles which means we have continuous data from the surface all the way down to the bottom of temperature salinity pressure dissolved oxygen and fluorescence wiederwohl said and then we also took bottle samples of oxygen methane and dic which is dissolved inorganic carbon total alkalinity and nutrients and salinity; and we also took underway measurements of sea surface temperature and salinity and currents every student on board did an excellent job of fulfilling their responsibilities and keeping the sampling running smoothly she said no matter how sea-sick they were they still did their work that was the most amazing part quite the bonding experience i was responsible for assisting the rosette in and out of the water i prepared and reset all of the niskin bottles to collect water properly after sampling was completed and i collected water to be analyzed for dissolved oxygen longridge said i think these research cruises are invaluable for students because they give you something tangible for what you are actually learning in the classroom i show all of this in class but its nothing like being there and doing it for real and seeing how it actually works yvon-lewis said the r/v point sur is owned by the university of southern mississippi and is operated by louisiana universities marine consortium (lumcon) wiederwohl and yvon-lewis praised the ships crew for their willingness to train students on operating the scientific equipment and other skills the crew can make or break the success of completing your science not only were they extremely helpful and supportive of meeting our goals they were also willing to let the students deploy equipment and run the a frame and they supervised and trained them on it wiederwohl said ive been on numerous different vessels and ive never been on a cruise where they allowed the students to be that hands-on this furthered their full understanding of how oceanographic data collection works from start to finish