The Surfzone Coastal Oil Pathways Experiment (SCOPE) is planned for the period from the 1st of December to the 21st of December. The team will arrive on the 29th to “scope” things out and contact the locals on the 30th. Positioning of the instruments will commence on the 30th with the diving operations scheduled to start on the 1st of December.

We expect the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) truck with the instruments and tools to arrive on the 2nd of December or shortly thereafter. The first University of Miami (UM) truck with the small boat, Blue water, in tow and the second UM truck with the SPEC in tow are expected to arrive on the 2nd as well. That is a ton of material that needs to be unloaded and subsequently prepared, but luckily we have a great group of researchers and graduate students!

The first couple of days of the experiment will be focused on drifter deployments to get a feel for the local conditions as well as hone our deployment and retrieval skills of the drifters. This is also a time to check whether all the instruments are working properly, including the instrumentation on the boats. Furthermore we will perform a bathymetric survey using a small boat and walking survey. This survey is key to have good model predictions of the waves and currents within the surf zone.

The first dye experiments are planned for later that first week, after a calibration of all the go-pro cameras used by the aerial vehicles.

The instruments will be pulled on the 18th and 19th of December. Everything will then be loaded back onto the trucks/containers on the 20th and on the 21st the last people depart.

Follow along as our scientists study this key area of the Gulf.