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Lab 23b: ocean: oceanography

MigrationSections:

  • Bathymetry
  • Loihi
  • Island chain evolution
  • Layers
  • Currents
  • Salinity
  • Temperature
  • Pressure

Part one: sonar and whales
  1. look up the speed of sound in progressair, water and earth
  2. look up the frequency of bat ultrasonic chirps (air), sonar (water), dolphin chirps (water), and whale song (water)
  3. calculate the wavelength for each
  4. why do bats need such small wavelengths? what do they eat?
  5. are whales using sound as navigation or just conversation, or both?
  6. what about dolphins?
  7. how do ships find how deep water is below them? 
  8. look up SOFER channels, how do submarines use these?
Part two: bathymetry (measuring the ocean floor)
  1. look on google earth for the surface of the ocean
  2. find the deepest parts and look up how deep these are
  3. how long would a sound pulse take from the surface to the bottom and back? (you need to look up the speed of sound in sea water)
  4. look on the map north east of the island of Oahu-what do you see on the ocean floor?
  5. look up the Nuuanu Slide on wikipedia-when did it happen?
  6. look up how basaltic volcanoes (like ours) create "rift zones", then "calve" off
  7. what happened in the Nuuanu slide?
  8. how big was the tsunami?
  9. how do we know? (clue: Mt. Kaala is on the west side of Oahu, it is 4055 ft. high)
  10. watch the simulation of the Mauna Loa tsunami online-how would we be impacted? what about folks on Oahu?
  11. watch the video of the Bali tsunami and the Fukushima tsunami-how are these different?
  12. what kills most folks in a tsunami?
  13. why is there a huge breakwater across Hilo harbor?
  14. what are the biggest tsunami to hit our island and when?
  15. what caused them?
Part three: Loihi
  1. look for the subsea volcano named Loihi
  2. where is it?
  3. see if you can find video of the deep sea submarine taking video of the volcano
  4. what volcano is closest to it?
  5. look up the ages of the 5 volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawai'i
  6. which is the oldest? youngest?
  7. where would the next oldest one be? (hint: look at the undersea map off the coast of Mahukona)
  8. look up the age of Kauai-how does this compare?
Part four: island chain evolution
  1. look up the age of Kilauea
  2. look up the age of Waialeale on Kauai
  3. on the undersea map, what is the next oldest and where?
  4. follow this chain along the ocean floor-where does it end?
  5. how did this happen?
  6. what is a hotspot, and why do you care?
  7. make a map of the island chain from oldest to newest, including the age of each main volcano (find a nice map online and print it on the color printer)
Part five: NADW
  1. look up the north Atlantic deep water (NADW)
  2. where does it start?
  3. what is it made of?
  4. how old is the water in the NADW?
  5. where does it surface?
  6. look up the Koyo water company in Kona
  7. what do they sell and to whom?
  8. for how much per liter?
  9. why would people pay for this?
  10. come up with a business plan to sell your own "NADW water": what would you sell, and to whom?
Part six: temperatures
  1. look up the temperature of water at the bottom of the Marianas Trench
  2. how deep is this?
  3. why is it so cold?
  4. look at a map of the surface sea temperatures
  5. where is it hottest?
  6. look off the west coast of Africa, and Mexico-why should you care?
  7. how do they use the cold water from the coast of Kona at NELHA?
  8. how deep is the pipe that feeds NELHA?
  9. how would you use it?
  10. how is it used to irrigate strawberries?
Part seven: Marine biology
  1. listen to this audio: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00237zl
  2. do you think dolphins and whales have a vocabulary?
  3. how is this different from how they navigate?
  4. look up the "melon" in dolphins and whales-how does it work?
  5. why is this better than using air?

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