RIEP Funded Projects

RIEP projects supported in FY07

1. Dr. Robert Ballard
Twelve days of ship time to complete the transit of R/V Endeavor as it returned from the highly successful deployment to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. During the ship’s operations around the Greek island of Thera (Santorini) in the Aegean Sea, previously unknown hydrothermal vents were discovered on the sea floor by GSO scientists Haraldur Sigurdsson and Steve Carey. While conducting operations south of Crimea in cooperation with the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Ballard located several World War II – era shipwrecks.

2. Drs Dwight Coleman and Rod Mather
Coleman and Mather conducted a highly detailed photographic survey of the wreck of the USS Monitor, the Civil War ironclad. The images from this survey will be used to form the most complete photographic record of the wreck site to date. During the cruise, several live broadcasts were beamed back to audiences in Rhode Island. Curtis Corners Middle School teacher Eric Towle participated as a member of the science party on R/V Endeavor.

3. Other Cruises
Two additional RIEP-funded cruises are planned for spring 2007. In March, URI Professor Kate Moran will lead a four-day cruise to begin initial testing of a new instrument that is designed to detect tsunamis. And later that same month, Dr. Tatiana Rynearson heads up an eight-day cruise to study plankton in the northwest Atlantic.