These application stories of tilt current meters and data loggers highlight how the instruments are used in the field to offer insight into deployment applications and methods.
Pregnant Spotted Ragged-Toothed Sharks in South Africa
Sharklife Conservation Group deployed Tilt Current Meters (TCM-1's) in iSimangaliso Wetland Park Marine Protected Area to collect temperature and current data, and study the effects these environmental conditions have on pregnant Spotted Ragged-toothed sharks.
Oyster Castle® Reefs on Nantucket
Dr Jen Karberg of the Nantucket Conservation Foundation had a challenge to find a way to reduce wave and tide impacts at the Medouie Creek salt marsh in Polpis Harbor while hoping to improve the ecological health of the marsh and the harbor. TCM-4 shallow water tilt current meters to monitor the existing conditions and will provide continuous long-term data to see how the reef changes water direction and speed around the salt marsh.
Restoration Project in the Gulf of Mexico
NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) has embarked on a series of science cruises to support long-term restoration projects in the Gulf of Mexico. The TCM-1s provide is the velocity, direction and temperature of currents in and around sea fan coral assemblages.
Hydrothermal Vents in Mid-Ocean Ridges
Lowell Instruments’ sensors were used in deep-sea loggers to study hydrothermal systems at Mid-Ocean Ridges (MOR)s. Dan Fornari from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and Thibaut Barreyre from the University of Bergen-Norway made improvements to WHOI-MISO loggers with the addition of Lowell Instruments’ orientation and temperature sensors in the logger housing for use in their research.
Inverted TCMs Under Sea Ice in Greenland
Andreas Muenchow, professor at the School of Marine Science and Policy at the University of Delaware, deployed three Tilt Current Meters (TCM-1) below "land-fast" sea ice in the Wolstenholme Fjord in Greenland in spring 2017.
Hurricane Island Experimental Aquaculture Site
On Hurricane Island in Maine, the research interests are concerned with scallops, and in particular, scallop spawning. Using a TCM-1 to understand the flow speed and direction at aquaculture and wild scallop sites during the spawning season could provide valuable information about where scallop gametes and larvae go immediately after dispersal.
Coral Reef and Seagrass Study in Palau
Stanford University undergraduate students got to work with hands-on field tools under the direction of two lead instructors including Stephen Monismith, the Obayashi Professor in the School of Engineering. In the Republic of Palau, students donned snorkeling gear and collected data on the coral reefs and its surrounding ecosystem.
Blue Holes and Hurricanes in the Caribbean
Jeff P. Donnelly from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and his team are researching blue holes in the Caribbean to connect the dots on climate history and hurricane activity. Tilt current meters were used to aid in the research and were deployed long-term all over the Caribbean, specifically in several blue holes in the Bahamas, Jamaica, Turks and Caicos.
Sea Kelp in the Stefansson Sound Boulder Patch, Alaska
Christina Bonsell, a PhD student at the Dunton Lab at the University of Texas in Austin has been using tilt current meters or TCM1’s since 2015 and deployed multiple meters in the field at Stefansson Sound and for The Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER
Ward Aquafarms in Megansett Harbor, North Falmouth
Right in our neighborhood of Falmouth, Ward Aquafarms has used four tilt current meters (TCM-1’s) to evaluate sites for bay scallop aquaculture. “We have four farms participating, so the deployment depth is different on each one.
In May of 2017 researchers from Temple University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Cal Tech, Occidental College, and the University of Rhode Island were on board the RV Atlantis from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Using the Alvin submersible Chris Roman, deployed four tilt current meters (TCM-3’s) on the seafloor.
Cenotes in the Yucatan, Mexico
USGS Biogeochemist John Pohlman and Texas A&M Postdoctoral Scientist David Brankovits, along with an international research team, studied submerged flooded cave systems of Ox Bel Ha in the Northeastern Yucatan. The team discovered an ecosystem in the groundwater where living organisms were feeding on methane as a primary source.
The focus of a study led by an international team including Ph.D. student Brandee Carlson from Rice University was sediment delivery of abandoned distributary channels and surface water connections. Carlson and her team have used tilt current meters (TCM-1 and TCM-4) since 2016 to look at how sediment accumulation affects delta dynamics.
Dissolved Oxygen Study with Lobster Fleet in Cape Cod Bay
Lowell Instruments LLC partnered with the Lobster Foundation of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Lobsterman’s Association, and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries to launch a study with a fleet of lobster boats, to monitor dissolved oxygen (DO) levels in Cape Cod Bay.
Coral Reefs in the Florida Keys
A dozen Tilt Current Meters (TCM-1’s) were deployed in the Florida Keys and South East Florida in coral reef habitats. Lew Gramer, Assistant Scientist with NOAA and The University of Miami's Cooperative Institute, said of the tilt current meters, “they are especially useful because they can show how the water flows over the coral”.