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SFOS Newsletter
Fall 2007

SPOTLIGHT on the Seward Marine Center

Photo by Jennifer Elhard.

by Daniel Oliver, Director, Seward Marine Center

The UAF Seward Marine Center is the primary coastal support facility for SFOS. The Center is located approximately 130 miles by road south of Anchorage, at the head of beautiful Resurrection Bay in Seward, Alaska.

SMC is the only university-owned marine station in Alaska and the northern-most university marine station in the United States.

SMC provides research support for UA faculty and students as well as for scientists from across the nation and the world. In addition to its own research vessels, the Center provides logistical, technical and administrative support for USGS, UNOLS, NOAA, USCG and private vessels chartered by UA researchers.

With five adminstrative staff, three research staff and 12 graduate students, SMC is a tight-knit community of individuals working hard to advance marine research in Alaska.

Most of the UAF graduate students at SMC study marine mammals including Steller sea lions, harbor seals and northern fur seals, or seabirds such as the Steller’s eider and spectacled eider.

Ready access to the Alaska SeaLife Center next door allows these students to work directly with the animals they are studying. Graduate students have their offices in SMC’s K.M. Rae Marine Education Building, which also includes a reception area and a 100-seat auditorium.

The 2,073 square foot D.W. Hood Laboratory provides dry lab space with wireless computer capability. The 1,989 square foot wet lab has a running sea water system, a variety of sizes of tanks and aquaria, and lights controlled by timers to simulate natural photoperiods. The untreated sea water, from a pipe extending 137 meters out into Resurrection Bay and drawing from a depth of 75 meters, is monitored daily for temperature, salinity and dissolved oxygen.

Throughout its history, SMC has successfully maintained live organisms for studies of many types of fish, mollusks and crustaceans found in Alaska waters, including salmon, pollock, shrimp, crabs, snails and clams.

Currently, SMC is the headquarters for the Alaska King Crab Research and Rehabilitation Program, an Alaska Sea Grant funded experiment to study techniques for the mass culture of king crab to replenish depleted stocks in Alaska.

The Center operates a coastal research vessel, the 28-foot R/V Little Dipper, which is available for oceanographic and marine biological research in Resurrection Bay. Researchers can collect water, sediment, and biological samples from Resurrection Bay and adjacent waters.

SMC opened its doors in 1970 when the UAF Institute of Marine Science transferred its coastal headquarters from Douglas, near Juneau, to Seward. SMC’s first vessel, the R/V Acona, was an 80-foot research ship operated by the Institute of Marine Science until 1980.

From 1980 until it was sold this summer, SMC was the home port for the 133-foot R/V Alpha Helix.

The planned replacement for the Alpha Helix is the $123-million, 236-foot Alaska Region Research Vessel, which will be headquartered at SMC. The National Science Foundation recently awarded funding for the first of four phases for the construction of the ARRV.

When completed, the ARRV will be the most advanced academic research vessel in the United States academic fleet. It is estimated that the vessel will be available beginning in 2011.