September 5, 2013 — A team of researchers from the University of Victoria embarks on a voyage today to further explore an expanding zone of low-oxygen water off Vancouver Island that threatens coastal fisheries and aquaculture.
The Schmidt Ocean Institute, which was created by Google’s chairman Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy, has offered the UVic team the use of its $62-million research vessel, Falkor, to further their research.
UVic’s Ocean Networks Canada already has a network of undersea sensors and instruments that relay data back to land over more than 850 kilometres of fibre-optic cable.
The hope is to combine that information with data gathered from the Falkor, which is equipped with acoustic sensors and an advanced sonar mapping system.
Researchers will then be able to track how low-oxygen water moves from the open ocean into the Strait of Georgia, Juan de Fuca Strait and other parts of the Salish Sea.