A voyage of discovery

College of Charleston students combine class = work, real=20 science and a taste of life at sea

By Bo Petersen

The Post and Courier

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Doc just got a longer profile.

The beams of more than 200 individual sonars fired by College = of=20 Charleston students swept north from Doc's Rocks, an undersea = outcropping=20 named for their teacher, Leslie Sautter, and found that the = terraced ledge=20 just doesn't quit. It keeps running at least 11 miles from the = six-mile=20 stretch where it was first mapped in 2006, and splits out from the = Continental Shelf as a narrow ridge of a shoal.

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Melissa Haneline
The Post and=20 Courier=20

College of Charleston Senior Stephen Long makes = his way=20 to the top deck of the NOAA ship Nancy Foster. The College of = Charleston=20 marine geology class went on a four-day cruise to map a portion of = the=20 bottom of the ocean.

What does that mean?

Fish.

"These things are great fish habitat," Sautter said.

The run of exposed rock at the drop-off of the sand bottom = suggests=20 there are other still unknown habitats like the rich Charleston = Bump=20 offshore. That would mean the Southeast coast has more breeding = grounds=20 than realized for game and commercial spe-cies. The college crew's = mapping=20 efforts come at a time when federal regulators are tightening the = screws=20 on where, when and how much can be caught of diminishing species, = such as=20 grouper, rules fishermen say are too restrictive.

But the more that can be learned about the habitats and = populations=20 offshore, the fairer the rules can be made.

Not bad work for a ship's lab full of undergraduates. Not a bad = payoff=20 for a few rough days in pitching seas, clutching at the computer = table=20 while coffee cups spilled and chairs rolled back to the tightest = stretch=20 of their bungee cords.

"It was way more feeling the waves than I thought it would be," = said=20 sophomore Caroline Broderick about her first deep-sea expedition. =

Thirteen students from the college's marine geology sea mapping = program=20 returned Tuesday from a cruise that is part lab work for the class = and=20 part of an ongoing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration = project=20 to map a coastal floor that has been only slightly mapped so far. =

Students=20 become scientists on cruise; 14 from C of C to explore the unknown = in real=20 time, published 10/23/08

It is, in other words, real science, hand in hand with working = survey=20 technicians. The classwork is so valuable that students field = career job=20 offers as they complete it.

"NOAA is always looking for survey technicians," said Melissa = Partyka,=20 one of the technicians with whom students worked aboard the = research ship=20 Nancy Foster. The more bodies, the faster the work gets done, = Partyka=20 said.

But the students bring more. Something about stepping on deck = in the=20 early morning to cast off the equipment cage and watching them = compete to=20 help her.

"I'm out here doing this all the time. It can get like going to = the=20 office. They make me realize how exciting, how far from the = ordinary my=20 job is," she said.

It's pretty far from ordinary, all right, even for college = students,=20 getting tossed out of the bunk in the night with the roll of a big = wave.=20 Whatever happened when junior Kristen Hughes tried to run on deck = she=20 laughs about but won't discuss. But her first time offshore "was = awesome,"=20 she said. "Being able to wake up in the morning and see the = sunrise at=20 sea."

The students also found evidence of a landslide or erosion = along the=20 rock ridge, one more hint of how the ledge, 50 miles out to sea, = might=20 have formed in the last Ice Age as shoreline with the Gulf Stream = rubbing=20 against it.

Reach Bo Petersen at = 745-5852 or=20 bpetersen@postandcourier.com= .

A voyage of discovery

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