Veritas, Vol. 35, No. 03, November 1993

              Barbecues, bake sales, and breakfasts highlight University’s fund-raising efforts for United Way
With a shorter-than-usual campaign this year, the University community wasted no time in finding creative ways to raise money for United Way. From selling hamburgers to washing cars to sponsoring a golf tournament, all campuses pitched in to offer their support.
“People have come up with an incredible variety of good ideas to make this not only a successful campaign but an enjoyable one as well,” says Lew Temares, campaign chairman. “We appreciate the energy and thoughtfulness that have gone into their efforts.”
Besides focusing on the non-traditional methods of raising money, this year's campaign leaders are also encouraging employees to give at the Community Leadership Club level—at least 1 percent of their annual salary.
The 1993 campaign, which ends in mid-November, has a goal of $400,000.
Faculty, staff, and students at the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science enjoy a lunchtime barbecue coordinated by Maria Maribona.
Staff from the Controller’s Office show off the T-shirts they are selling to benefit United Way.
Marvin Siegel and Pat Grewe (right), United Way co-coordinators for the medical campus, join the University-wide effort to sell raffle tickets. Purchasing tickets are Ross Schwelm (left) and Dickson Lam of medical computer services, who are both hoping to win the grand prizes—a television and a VCR.
RSMAS researchers simulate oil spill off Florida Keys
If there were an oil tanker spill off the Florida Keys, where would the oil go? Would it flow northeasterly with the Gulf Stream or would it damage the reefs and shores of the Keys? How would it affect fish larvae that drift with the currents? To find out, the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) conducted a simulated oil spill experiment off Looe Key.
Researchers set drifting buoys in the water and tracked their movement via satellite. The new data will help the scientists develop a clearer picture of how an oil slick would move through the Straits of Florida where there is constant shipping traffic.
“The information we gained will help us develop a strategy for the clean up of spilled oil if there ever is an accident off the Keys,” says Chris Mooers, professor of applied marine physics, who directs RSMAS's Ocean Pollution Research Center, which is presently funded by the U.S. Coast Guard. “To contain an oil spill, clean up crews have to lay their containment equipment about two hours ahead of the oil flow. We hope to eventually have the data that will show where that will be.”
During the experiments researchers also mapped surface currents between Key West and Bahia Honda using OSCR—the Ocean Surface Current Radar. As that was done, other scientists sampled ambient hydrocarbons in the ocean under non-oil spill conditions, and they measured the food that fish larvae eat, while sampling the number and type of larvae present at various depths. The scientists also looked at current convergent zones where spilled oil could mix with and kill drifting fish larvae.
The scientists focused on a region off the Keys where there is often great variability in the directions of currents—some running counter to the Gulf Stream, others being part of huge eddies, 20 to 30 miles in diameter. Many of these areas are the locations of fronts, regions of strong changes in water temperature and salinity that are maintained by convergent currents. Because there is sinking water at these locations, the researchers also hope to determine where oil would remain afloat and where heavier parts of the slick might be forced toward the sea bottom.
According to Mooers, information gleaned from this study will be used to
test and improve real-time computer models of wind, currents, and surface waves in the Straits of Florida. He says much of this information also will be
September’s ocean current study off the Keys indicates that flood waters from the Mississippi River have been carried by the Gulf Stream southeast through the Florida Straits and up the east coast of Florida.
RSMAS oceanographers and marine biologists observed in the Gulfstream reduced water salinity, organisms characteristic of fresher waters, and possibly chemicals that they believe are from the storm-flooded Mississippi River. The scientists gathered their data during the recent Keys research expedition.
“We basically have a part of the Mississippi River flowing off the coast of Florida,” says Rod Zika. professor of marine and atmo-
applicable to other forms of pollution, such as sewage, thermal, and radioactive waste.
spheric chemistry. “What this shows is that in Florida we are not immune to what happens elsewhere.” According to Zika, the runoff may include chemicals found in the Mississippi basin and some industrial pollutants. Researchers found salt content in the seawrater at 31 parts per thousand, down from the usual 36 parts per thousand found in those w aters. Zika says water analysis shows the presence of hydrogen peroxide at 300 percent higher than normal throughout the region. The scientists, including Elizabeth Clarke and Peter Ortner,, also found organisms more characteristic of fresher estuary waters, such as those at the mouth of the Mississippi River.
—F.S.
:ariss Samarrai
Study finds Mississippi flood waters off coast of Florida
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