RV Endeavor

R/V Endeavor returned to her homeport at the GSO pier on March 11. Endeavor just finished up a very successful dockside repair period at Senesco Ship Yard.

When the University of Rhode Island’s research ship Endeavor topped off its 53,000 gallon fuel tanks last month, it filled up with refined biodiesel, making it the first ship in the U.S. research fleet to use the alternative fuel. It’s the first step in the University’s plan to transform the 185-foot vessel into the most energy-efficient and “green” research vessel in the country.

The Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island celebrated the recent retirement of one of its longest serving and most distinguished professors last week with a day-long symposium in his honor.

The University of Rhode Island's R/V Endeavor has commenced its 500th research cruise, carrying a group of faculty members, graduate and undergraduate students south across the Gulf Stream and into the Sargasso Sea on a seven-day expedition. The students and scientists will conduct measurements of the current in the Gulf Stream, sample for air and water pollutants, and collect samples of phytoplankton in the Sargasso Sea. The cruise is part research, and part training for students, who will learn about data collection and conducting science at sea by hands-on participation. 

URI GSO researchers Dave Hebert, Dave Ullman and Sandy Fontana are at sea onboard the RV Endeavor from the end of April to the end of May investigating an oceanic feature known as the Northwest Corner Eddy. South of Newfoundland, the Gulf Stream branches into two currents, one of which is the North Atlantic Current.  The North Atlantic Current generates eddies on a regular basis.

In early April, R/V Endeavor brought a group of enthusiastic students and faculty, led by Chief Scientist Susanne Menden-Deuer, out to the Gulf of Maine to study plankton dynamics on Georges Bank - a historically highly productive fishing ground.

The RV Endeavor, fresh from an overhaul and sporting a blue hull, will once again be at sea from March 22 to 26.   Part of the time at sea will be devoted to a “shake down” to test Endeavor’s equipment.  GSO researchers, including chief scientist Kathryn Moran, Tania Lado Insua, Ian Kulin, and Jim Newman, will also be testing a Simple Cabled Instrument for Measuring Parameters In-situ (SCIMPI).  SCIMPI is designed to take subsurface time series measurements of temperature, pressure and resistivity in Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) boreholes to study the seafloor as a dynamic system. 

As the effort to fight the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continues, the University of Rhode Island research vessel RV Endeavor is participating in studying the scope of the spill. The purpose of the mission, funded by the National Science Foundation, is to track, characterize and sample subsurface oil in the Gulf.

The University of Rhode Island research vessel Endeavor departed for Haiti on Feb. 17 on a two-fold mission — to study geologic evidence of the recent earthquake along the seafloor in Haitian waters and to deliver humanitarian supplies procured by Plan USA.

Scott Dickison, a teacher from Rogers High School in Newport, recently completed a November cruise aboard RV Endeavor as a participant in the Rhode Island Teacher-at-Sea (RITAS) Program. The scientific team, led by Chief Scientist Anna Pfeiffer-Herbert, a GSO graduate student, also included GSO Professor Chris Kincaid and graduate student Christelle Balt.