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Coastal Margin Science

The centers coastal margin science seeks to understand condition, variability and change at the interface of coastal margins with large-scale processes (climate and plate tectonics) and human activities.

Environmental sentinels are used as currency to characterize and anticipate change, across past, present and future. Guided and contextualized by SATURN products, campaigns allow unprecedented reconnaissance surveys of prokaryotic and eukaryotic microbial communities, as well as complementary characterizations of E-GRs. Multidimensional Scaling

Diagram of multidimensional scaling showing relative similarity in bacterioplankton communities in surface waters collected every four hours during four 24-hour periods near a surface water drifter. Communities were compared using PCR-DGGE of 16S rRNA genes.

Programs & Projects
Under the Coastal Margin Science theme, there are five program areas with multiple projects.

PROGRAM II.1 PROJECTS
Environmental Sentinels
Objective: To develop a set of objective indicators (“sentinels”) of present, past and future variability and change.
 		 II.1.1 Physical sentinels
II.1.2 Biogeochemica/ecological sentinels

PROGRAM II.2 PROJECTS
State and Variability
Objective: Characterize the state and variability of the contemporary Columbia River estuary and plume, accounting for watershed and shelf/basin forcing.
 		 II.2.1 Building climatologies and anomalies
II.2.2 Quantifying fluxes and gradients
a. River to ocean CDOM Fluorescence
II.2.3 Characterizing communities
a. Environmental controls on river-to-ocean variability in bacterioplankton community composition
b. Bloom decay and cellular aging
c. Analysis of fluorescence signatures from phytoplankton DOC
d. Phytoplankton/protist genetic markers
e. Massively parallel Tag Pyrosequencing with bar-coded primers for high-throughput analysis of microbial community composition
f. Soil-to-River-to-Ocean Crenarchaeota
g. Archaea in 4 rivers
h. Myrionecta rubra
i. Microbiology in ETM
j. Drifter studies: Short term variation in bacterioplankton community composition and gene expression in the Columbia River plume and coastal ocean
II.2.4 Determine ecosystem energy flow
a. Columbia River estuary methane biogeochemistry
II.2.5 Supporting fisheries research

PROGRAM II.3 PROJECTS
Reconstructing History
Objective: Characterize historical change of the Columbia River estuary and plume, accounting for climate and human influences.
 
II.3.1 Pre-development conditions

PROGRAM II.4 PROJECTS
Anticipating Change
Objective: Anticipate change in the Columbia River estuary and plume, accounting for climate change, plate tectonics and human influences.
 
II.4.1 Climate change
II.4.2 Anthropogenic changes
II.4.3 Coastal subsidence

PROGRAM II.5 PROJECTS
Campaign Science
Objective: Evolve from a series of cruises to a coherent campaign, using all the observational and modeling tools available to CMOP to explore and advance a focused set of scientific issues.
II.5.1 Wecoma: 04/03-06 ‘07
II.5.2 Wecoma & Barnes: 08/14-09/01 ’07 
II.5.3 Wecoma: 11/01-19 ‘07
II.5.4 Wecoma: 04/10-17 ‘08
II.5.5 Wecoma: 05/27-06/07 ‘08
II.5.6 Wecoma & Barnes: 07/10-28 & 07/07-14 ‘08 
II.5.7 Wecoma: 09/13-10/01 ‘08
II.5.8 Multi-platform campaign: 05/12-30 ’09
II.5.9 Multi-platform campaign: 08/29-09/14 ‘09