Oregon Slope Base Shallow Profiler Mooring

The Oregon Slope Base Shallow Profiler Mooring is situated adjacent to the continental slope off the coast of Oregon at ~2,900 meters water depth. Here, ocean water properties are profoundly impacted by the California Current and internal waves. The coastal region of the Pacific Northwest is a classic wind-driven upwelling system where nutrient-rich deep waters rise to replace warmer surface waters, resulting in high marine productivity that attracts zooplankton, fish, and marine mammals. Near-bottom fauna are periodically negatively impacted by the flow of deep waters with very low oxygen concentrations (hypoxic events), and upwelling of corrosive, acidified waters onto the continental shelf. This two-legged mooring is attached to an electro-optical cable that supplies power and bandwidth and hosts a Shallow Profiler (SF01B), a 200m Platform (PC01B), and a Winch Controller (SC01B). The 200 m platform and Shallow Profiler both house scientific instrumentation, and the profiler is tethered to a mooring-mounted winch that allows it to travel across a fixed depth in the water column (20 m to 200 m below sea surface), determined by currents and wave conditions at the surface. The mooring is co-located with a Low-Power junction box that collects complementary data near the seafloor. When coupled with other Cabled Array and Endurance Array installations off the central Oregon coast, the Slope Base Shallow Profiler Mooring allows for measurements of a variety of coastal phenomena, including cross-shelf and along-shelf variability.