Endurance Shelf V17

The BEP at the Oregon Shelf site is in highly productive waters. It provides a protective habitat and hard substrate for biological communities to grow on, including large sea anemones that have colonized this platform in the 1-year it has been installed. Credit: UW/NSF-OOI/WHOI; V16.

The housing for the zooplankton instrument forms a good habitat for sea anemones and fish at the Oregon Shelf Site at 80 m water depth. Credit: UW/NSF-OOI/WHOI; V16.

Location: 44°38.238ºN  124°18.336ºW     Water Depth: 80 meters      

The Oregon Endurance Shelf Site, at a water depth of 80 m, is the shallowest cabled site along the Oregon Endurance Array. It is part of the Endurance Array, which in total includes two cross-shelf moored array lines, the Oregon Line (also called the Newport Line) and the Washington Line (also known as the Grays Harbor Line). Each of these lines contain three fixed sites spanning the slope (500-600 m), shelf (80 m) and inner-shelf (25 m). These moorings provide synoptic, multi-scale observations of the eastern boundary current regime. The Oregon and Washington Lines are both affected by wind-driven upwelling and downwelling, but shelf stratification and upper-ocean properties are influenced differently at each location by the Columbia River outflow. Autonomous seagliders provide 4D profiling surveys that measure key ocean parameters that complement the mooring observations. Long term measurements of key ocean variables at both locations will allow for a greater understanding of coastal ocean ecosystem responses to climate variability.