Pioneer (Array)

The first phase of the Pioneer Array deployment took place in November 2013, with the installation of three moorings – a surface mooring at the central site, a profiler mooring at the upstream inshore site and a profiler mooring at the upstream offshore site. In April 2014, during the second deployment phase, five Wire-Following Profile Moorings were deployed at the Pioneer Array with three gliders. The third and final deployment phase is scheduled for Fall 2014. The Pioneer Array is located off the coast of New England, south of Martha’s Vineyard. The Continental Shelf-Slope area off the New England coast is a highly productive area and one that is located at a dynamic intersection where ocean currents meet in weather-like “fronts,” and where nutrients, pollutants, and other properties are exchanged between the coast and the deep ocean. Data from the inshore, shelf area helps to examine exchanges between the shelf and slope and the shelf ecosystem, as well as provide broader insight into the issues of air-sea gas exchange, including Carbon Dioxide. The backbone of the Pioneer Array will be a frontal-scale moored array with three electro-mechanical (EM) surface moorings and seven profiler moorings. Each surface mooring will incorporate a surface buoy with multiple sources of power generation and multiple surface and subsurface communications systems. Each surface mooring will be anchored by a Multi-Function Node (MFN) on the seafloor. Two MFNs will incorporate docking stations for AUVs. All three MFNs will be capable of supporting multiple onboard (e.g., frame-mounted) sensors as well as external sensor packages connected by wet-mateable connectors. Five profiler moorings with surface expressions for data telemetry will support wire-following profiling packages with a multidisciplinary sensor suite. Two surface-piercing profiler moorings will use a buoyant instrument package capable of profiling from a few meters above the bottom up to the air-sea interface. In order to provide synoptic, multi-scale observations of the outer continental shelf, shelf break region, and continental slope, the moored array will be supplemented by nine mobile platforms – six gliders and three AUVs. The role of the gliders will be to monitor the mesoscale field of the slope sea and outer shelf, resolving rings, eddies and meanders from the Gulf Stream as they impinge on the shelf break front. The AUVs will be the primary tools for resolving cross- and along-front “eddy fluxes” due to frontal instabilities, wind forcing, and mesoscale variability. Location of the central mooring: 40.14°N, 70.78°W. Approximate Water Depth: 133 meters at center of moored arra