Wednesday, December 9, 2009

MRI of an Oyster Beautiful Images

Mathew and the team at Bruker Corp have graciously supplied these fascinating images. If you click on the first two they might rotate in 3-D.



:Live Oyster


Oyster Shell




Oyster still  CT




Dive Team Places Monitoring Equipment Despite Snowfall

One of the most inspiring aspects of MOP is the dedication of our volunteers. This past Sunday our dive team walked through snow to get to the dive site to get in and place temperature sensing I-buttons. When meeting them I told them never to contact me to testify pm their behalf at a mental competency hearing as this seemed crazy to me. I was cold just watching them.


                                      

The I-buttons are low-cost devices that can record water temperature every four hours over a year. We are curious to see what kind of variation we may see as the readings may be impacted by tides, flows from the Charles, depths and location. We learned about the technology at a Coastal Environmental Senxing Networks conference at UMass Boston this Summer. This portion of the Project is being spearheaded by Rich Bradshaw.


Here is a link to the Picazza  photo album of the day.Snowy I-Button Dive

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Welcome Mathew Brevard to the MOP Board of Directors


Welcome Mat Brevard to the MOP Board of Directors.

If you have attended any dive or MOP event, you may have noticed the tall diver Mathew Brevard. He has done world’s of good for MOP beyond his frequent volunteer dives and production of oyster cages. He has provided numerous ideas to bring scientific discipline to our placements and assembled a world class team of diving volunteers.
He has recently joined the MOP board and we are ecstatic to have him with us.



Friday, December 4, 2009

Visit to Wellfleet Bay Audobon Center

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, my family visited the impressive Audobon Center in South Wellfleet, MA. Wellfleet Audobon Center  There we met with Center Director Bob Prescott who is the driving force behind their oyster reef restoration project. They are placing down bags of shell for the native oyster seed to attach to and form a reef. Here is some information on the project. Wellfleet oyster restoration

Unfortunately, high winds and rough seas made it impossible for us to visit the actual site. But we did get to visit their impressive center and walk among the beautiful preserve and do some bird watching. We offered to drive the six rescued sea turtles on hand back home with us to the New England Aquarium, but another lucky volunteer beat us to the honor.
We also discussed the idea of an oyster restoration meeting to bring all the parties in the state active in this field together to compare notes and share experiences. Our state trails others along the Eastern Seaboard significantly in its oyster restoration efforts, but we seem to be building momentum!

Below is a picture of an oyster catcher taken by Susannah in Nahant. She is a Friend of the Belle Isle Marsh. (Don't worry- our oysters are too big for this fellow to eat.)