In an effort to better understand gas hydrates and their makeup, scientists and engineers from the Center for Hydrate Research at the Colorado School of Mines and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have for the first time obtained data from a Raman spectrometer deployed in the deep sea. With support from NOAA's Underseas Research Program and MBARI, scientists are exploring the composition and fate of gas hydrates in their natural environment using a modified bench-top Raman spectrometer at Hydrate Ridge (off the Oregon coast) and at Barkley Canyon (off Vancouver Island, British Columbia). This research has provided new insights into the stability, structure, composition and heterogeneity of these energy-rich, and potentially unstable methane hydrate deposits found in the deep sea. (more info)

The Kasitsna Bay Laboratory (KBL) is a unique partnership between NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), through the National Undersea Research Program (NURP). KBL (Figure 1) is the Alaska field station of the Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research, under the NOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS). The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) helps to operate KBL under a Memorandum of Agreement with NCCOS and runs a cold water diving program at the laboratory as part of the West Coast and Polar Regions NURP Center. UAF has operated a dive training program at KBL for several years, funded by NURP and UAF's Graduate Program in Marine Science and Limnology. KBL has been a research field station for both NOS and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) since the late 1950s, coming under the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries before NOAA was created in 1972. (more info).

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