Bering Sea Ecosystem Study Cruise Data from 177 Stations

177 unique sampling stations were surveyed during the HLY0803 cruise of the USCG cutter Healy across the eastern Bering Sea shelf. This NSF-funded Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) project dataset examines pathways of nutrients and organic matter, focusing on the impact of sea ice on marine ecology. It includes measurements from CTD casts, bio-optics casts, and various biological sampling tows.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the relationship between sea ice presence and nutrient concentrations using CTD cast data.
• Studying phytoplankton communities and bio-optical properties from bio-optics casts.
• Investigating zooplankton and upper trophic level distributions from MOCNESS, CALVet, and bongo tow samples.
• Examining sediment composition and particle flux from multicore drops and sediment trap deployments.
• Mapping spatial gradients in ocean temperature and salinity across the Bering Sea continental shelf.

Strengths

• Dataset covers a wide spatial range with 177 unique stations from the Aleutian Islands to St. Lawrence Island.
• Integrates multiple measurement types including physical (CTD), optical (bio-optics), and biological (MOCNESS, bongo) sampling.
• Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as part of the structured Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) project.

Limitations

• Specific column names, row counts, and dataset size are not provided by any source.
• Sources conflict on license information: one specifies 'other-license-specified', while another lists 'None'.

Provenance

Source

NSF-funded Bering Ecosystem Study (BEST) project, cruise HLY0803 on USCG cutter Healy.

Collection Method

Field sampling at 177 stations including CTD casts, bio-optics casts, MOCNESS tows, CALVet tows, bongo tows, multicore drops, and sediment trap deployments.

Time Range

2008 (inferred from cruise identifier HLY0803).

Freshness

2026-03-13 10:43:36.718662

Geography

Eastern Bering Sea shelf, from the Aleutian Islands to St. Lawrence Island.