February, 2022 - SAMS UHI Student Blog

2017 SAMS UHI alumni Blair Watson poses for the camera in his red Dynamic Earth uniform jacket whilst on a recent work trip back to his old uni campus at SAMS UHI in Oban.

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Alumni Stories: Blair Watson, Dynamic Earth

26 February 2022
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Sri Lankan student Faazil who is studying on the ACES+ masters programme poses for the camera in hat and scarf on the SAMS campus balcony on a cold winter afternoon.

International Students Student Life Student Stories Study

Student focus – Faazil Dahlan (Aquaculture)

8 February 2022
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SAMS UHI Student Blog

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NEWS: Researching underwater tsunamis 🌊 SAMS ha

NEWS: Researching underwater tsunamis 🌊 SAMS has joined an international collaboration of researchers in an effort to discover how underwater tsunamis are triggered by glacier calving around Antarctica.

The £3.7 million research project, called POLOMINTS, is led by @britishantarcticsurvey and will analyse how these underwater tsunamis contribute to the mixing of ocean waters, a process that plays a critical role in shaping global climate systems, the Antarctic Ice Sheet, and marine ecosystems.

This week, POLOMINTS scientists are meeting at the BAS headquarters in Cambridge to finalise plans for the project, which promises to shed light on this newly discovered phenomenon.

SAMS has undertaken similar work on these underwater tsunamis in the Arctic regions of Greenland and Svalbard, using a combination of underwater robotic vehicles and modelling. The team hopes to carry out similar work, this time in the southern hemisphere. As part of the research effort, a SAMS scientist will be based in Antarctica for a field season.

Read more on our news page (link in bio).

📷: Prof Mark Inall from SAMS in Antarctica.

#POLOMINTS #MarineScience #Antarctica #Research #OceanResearch #MarineResearch #PolarScience #Polar #MarineConservation #Ocean #ClimateChange #Sea

🌊 The Oban Winter Festival is here, celebratin

🌊 The Oban Winter Festival is here, celebrating Oceans and Seas—a perfect fit for SAMS’ 140th anniversary! 🎉

We’re proud to be involved again this year, starting off with our contribution to the Winter Woods event: a replica of the HMS Challenger, crafted from recycled materials (Picture 1 and 2). This tribute honours the Challenger Expedition, which laid the foundation for modern marine science, led by SAMS’ founding director, John Murray—the man who is known to have coined the term oceanography!

We've also shared here photos of some of our favourite ocean inspired pieces at the event made by schools and community organisations.

Plus, don’t miss our "Our World from Space" workshops @therockfieldcentre (Thurs 21st & Sat 23rd, 11am–3:30pm) to explore how space tech can help us learn more about the ocean. 🌎✨

A massive well done to the event organisers and best wishes for another successful year.

#ObanWinterFestival #SAMS #MarineScience #Winter #Ocean #SciArt #OceanArt #WinterWoods #Oban #Argyll #OceanSculpture #PlasticPollution #MarineConservation

NEWS: SAMS’ Marine Mammal PhDs at #SMM2024, Pert

NEWS: SAMS’ Marine Mammal PhDs at #SMM2024, Perth, Australia 🇦🇺 - and a conference win too 🏆

Four PhD students from SAMS travelled across the globe last week to the Society for @marinemammalogy conference in Perth, Australia. At the event, the PhD students each presented their research on #MarineMammals in Scottish waters with researchers and conservationists worldwide. Well done to Helen Hiley, Thomas Webber, Tim Awbery and Caitlin Lamb!

A huge congratulations too to SAMS UHI PhD student Tim Awbery for winning the Conference Theme Award! 🎉 Tim's presentation on dynamic habitat suitability models to assess minke whale entanglement risks made waves at conference. 👏

Amazing work, team! 🌟

@thinkuhi @nercscience #SUPERDTP #ThinkUHI #SAMS #SAMSPhD #PhD #Postgrad #GraduateSchool #MarineScience #SMM2024 #Entanglement #Whales #WhaleEntanglement #MarineConservation #Ocean #Sea #MinkeWhale #OceanPollution #MarinePollution

Marine Science Field Trip 🛥🦀: Isadora, now a

Marine Science Field Trip 🛥🦀: Isadora, now a 2nd-year student on the SAMS UHI Marine Science degree programme, shares her experience of research trawling in Ardmucknish Bay. This field trip, part of the undergraduate course, provides hands-on experience in collecting data on marine species and understanding their populations, which is key for ocean conservation and management.

During their field trip, students tested research techniques like benthic trawling, looking for flatfish such as European plaice and dab. Towing a net along the seabed for no more than a few minutes, they caught 185 individuals in just three trawls, including a spotted ray, scorpionfish, and more. After identifying, counting, and measuring, all creatures were released safely back into the ocean.

Find out more about studying Marine Science at SAMS, a partner of @thinkuhi see link in bio.

#ThinkUHI #UniversityOnThe Beach #MarineScience #Research #MarineConservation #Ocean #Oban #Scotland #OceanResearch #BSc #FieldTrip #StudentLife #Sea #SeaLife

Hallowe'en is a day for ghosts, but have you heard

Hallowe'en is a day for ghosts, but have you heard of 'ghost fishing'? 👻

Scientists at SAMS have successfully trialled a method for finding lost creel fishing gear. 'Ghost fishing' describes fishing gear such as creels that continue to fish without ever being recovered. The ropes between the creels could also pose an entanglement risk to marine mammals.

Dr Steven Benjamins led a project to use sonar and a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to search for lost gear. His results are published in a new report.

Dr Benjamins said: “There are lots of reasons why creel fishing gear becomes lost, such as storms or interactions with other fishers and large vessels, and these are largely outwith the control of fishermen. The gear is sometimes found but we suspect that a lot of it is lost to the ocean; we wanted to know if we could find it.”

Read more at www.sams.ac.uk/news.

@thinkuhi @naturescot
Scottish Creel Fishermen's Federation

#creel #ghostfishing #MarineScience #Fishing #OceanPollution #MarinePollution #Entanglement #MarineConservation

❄As the Arctic Circle #ASSEMBLY2024 kicks off in

❄As the Arctic Circle #ASSEMBLY2024 kicks off in Reykjavik, an international team of scientists are racing to understand how Greenland's rapidly melting glaciers will affect our oceans and climate.

We joined the recent @nercscience #KANGGLAC research cruise on board the RRS Sir David Attenborough to investigate ocean-forced warming of the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is decaying at an accelerated rate because of climate change.

The expedition analysed marine sediment cores and used modern observations techniques, including robotic instruments, to compare changes in the seabed and the physical oceanography.

The SAMS team of Lewis Drysdale, Lea Riehn, Laura Castro De La Guardia and John Howe used an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (the Teledyne Marine #AUV 'Freya') to collect in-situ observations of the environmental conditions next to the marine terminating glaciers.

The AUV completed 31 missions for a combined total of 20 hours underwater, travelling 105 km distance and diving to depths of 445m under the harsh pack ice of the fjords and coastal regions. The research cruise was led by the @britishantarcticsurvey and @durhamuniversity. In addition to the marine surveys, the project used a helicopter from @air_greenland_official to conduct onshore geology sampling including collecting rock and lake sediment samples.

🎥 Footage by Bryony Freer, Christopher Gray, Joe Laurance, Joe Metcalfe, Iain Rudkin & Alena Sakovich

#KANGGLAC #ASSEMBLY2024 #MarineScience #Arctic #technology #ClimateChange #Greenland #SAMS

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