On June 28, seven members of a UVI scientific party left St. Thomas by
air to rendezvous with the Research Vessel Seward Johnson in Barbados for
the start of the first leg of the oceanographic expedition called ACTS-II.
This is the eleventh such shipboard study conducted under the Anegada
Climate Tracers Study (ACTS), intended to study the flow and the exchange of climatically significant substances between the Atlantic and the Caribbean.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and is conducted as a joint exercise with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). The expedition will leave Barbados to take measurements in each of the major passages between the islands. The UVI study (ACTS) focuses on the last of these, the Anegada Passage. NOAA's chief scientist, Douglas Wilson, conducts his own Windward Islands Passages Monitoring Project as he heads
the collaborative expedition.
The team for the first leg includes UVI students Linda Bailey, Jack DeVan, Brandon Eyre, Michael Holt, Leukemia Mounce and Barry Volson, as well as recent graduate Adam Quandt. This portion of the trip ends in Antigua, where UVI grad Ronald Olivacce will join the ship for the second leg's
survey of the Anegada Passage and return to St. Thomas.
Many first-leg participants will remain for the second leg but disembark once the vessel reaches St. Thomas. The third leg consists of hydrographic and current sampling in the Virgin Islands Basin and the Mona Passage, which is located west of Puerto Rico. Senior technician Kevin Brown, UVI Marine Advisor Mayra Suarez and principal investigator Roy Watlington will join the expedition for this two-day study.
This is the first ACTS expedition for Bailey, Mounce and Suarez but possibly the last for Olivacce, who became the first ACTS student intern in 1996.
Persons interested in the scientific aspects of this study can get more information by checking the web address www.uvi.edu/ECC/ACTS.htm or
by calling (340) 693-1391.