The University of Victoria’s Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is about to embark on what’s expected to be its most exciting expedition. For the first time ONC will be using two ships, exploration vessel (E/V) Nautilus, on its first trip to Canada, and research vessel (R/V) Thomas G. Thompson.

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is poised to head out to sea on a month-long expedition with two world-class ships, to conduct annual operations and maintenance on the observatories off the west coast of Canada.

ONC recently expanded its world-class ocean observatories to include data collected from three BC Ferries. With instrumentation in the ferries’ hull and a weather station on deck, scientists can now observe ocean surface properties continuously while the ferries transit the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) is providing Environment Canada with a customized web portal for the Pan Am and Parapan Am Games to display up-to-the-minute weather forecasts and alerts.

The 49th Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (CMOS) Congress is the premier gathering place for meteorologists, weather forecasters, oceanographers, and marine scientists from across Canada. They gathered in Whistler, BC during the first week of June to exchange research findings, assess new technology advances, and coordinate national and regional programs.

On 11 January 2015, the link with Ocean Networks Canada’s Barkley Canyon node was lost, halting all data delivery from this site in the Northeast Pacific. Further investigation revealed that a fishing trawler gear had damaged the node and cut off communications to all sensors connected to the Barkley Canyon node.

The University of Victoria’s Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), was funded to partner with the University of Manitoba develop, install and maintain the cabled estuary observatory component of a new Churchill Marine Observatory (CMO) in Hudson Bay.

Every spring, plankton in many coastal temperate marine systems such as the Strait of Georgia will grow in number so rapidly and to such an extent that the water colour will become visibly green. This year, the spring phytoplankton bloom was the earliest we’ve had since 2005.

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• ONC Spring Expedition 2015 – March 28 to April 2 in the Strait of Georgia Observatory

When the M/V Oceanic Surveyor tied up at the dock in Steveston B.C., forensic anthropologist Lynne Bell was eagerly awaiting the tray of bones from pig carcasses #15 and #16, retrieved from Ocean Network Canada’s Strait of Georgia east observatory site.

Seismic sensors on Ocean Networks Canada’s seafloor observatory installed offshore Vancouver Island detected an earthquake in the Northeast Pacific Ocean on the morning of 24 April 13:56:16 UTC (7:00 a.m. PDT) 

The magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck offshore the Haida Gwaii Region, with its epicentre about 280 kilometres south west of Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

News stories this spring are reporting the presence of a large, mysterious, and unusual mass of warm surface water in the Northeast Pacific Ocean that has migrated from offshore Alaska to the western coastline, and stretches from northern B.C. to southern California.

Ocean Network Canada’s Dr. Richard Dewey reported on this anomaly with data from the Folger Passage study site in November 2014.

A new documentary about the changing Salish Sea was recently the talk of the environmentally conscious crowd in Washington DC. “Reaching Blue” co-producer and ONC’s Video Specialist, Andy Robertson, attended the festival and introduced the film screening to a full house at National Geographic’s Grosvenor Auditorium.

Play Digital Fishers while helping a marine biologist better understand how creatures in the deep ocean live – where there is no light and food is scarce!

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Sound is a powerful tool for studying the ecosystem beneath the surface of the sea. Nowhere is it more important than in the Salish Sea, the critical habitat of the endangered southern resident orcas.

JASCO Applied Sciences (Canada) Ltd. designs and manufactures instruments that measure and monitor the effect of noise on marine life. The company has recently taken its undersea sound-monitoring technology in a new direction through its participation in efforts to protect orcas off Canada’s west coast. “It’s a high-water mark for us from a technology point of view,” JASCO president Scott Carr said in an interview. “Technology originally developed to detect submarines is now used to protect sea animals.”