The Mooring Array

The ASCA mooring array, currently deployed, consists of:

• Two shelf moorings deployed at 80 and 120 m respectively.  These are represented by positions C2 and C3 on Figure 1.
• Seven tall moorings deployed from 300 to 4500 m, shown as Mooring A to G on Figure 1.
• Five Current- and Pressure Inverted Echo-Sounders (CPIES) to augment the tall mooring data and deployed from 1200 m to 4500 m and extending the array 300 km offshore.
• Instruments deployed on the array include 300 kHz and 75 KHz Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCP) from Teledyne RD Instruments, Aanderaa and Nortek single point Current Meters, Sea-Bird electronics Microcat Sensors and the CPIES themselves.  More information on each of these instruments, along with the acoustic releases and location beacons can be found in our Instruments section.

Figure 1: ASCA Mooring Array overlaid on a 3-year cross track velocity (m/s) with the vertical potential temperature in inset (figure reproduced from Prof. Lisa Beal – RSMAS)