Cruise EN487, Chief Scientist Gareth Lawson's October-November 2010 Krill cruise to the northern flank of Georges Bank and the southern portion of the Gulf of Maine region (42 North 67.5 West), is the second of two cruises completed for the Gulf of Maine Krill project in Fall 2010. The cruises were designed to conduct the same work in the same study location. The timing of the cruises was selected to allow an examination of the impact of herring predation on euphausiid aggregations. The first cruise (cruise EN484 in 2010) each year (two similar cruises are planned for 2011) is timed to begin one week after the NOAA Ship Delaware II will have commenced its herring survey. Real-time data collected during that survey will be used to define the exact survey grid for our project. During the first cruise, EN484, the herring were expected to be pre-spawning and therefore not feeding on euphausiids (the target species for this project).
The second cruise each year (EN487 in 2010) is timed to begin in the last week of October. At this time, herring and euphausiids will still be present in the study region, but the herring will be post-spawning and will have resumed feeding on euphausiids.
EN487 cruise track JPEG image from URI (vessel operator)
Cruise information and original data are available from the NSF R2R data catalog.