| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| HCMR | POSEIDON Monitoring, Forecasting and Information System for the Greek Seas (POSEIDON). Installation 5: Poseidon Calibration Lab (PCL). |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| http://www.poseidon.hcmr.gr | Heraklion, Crete |
Description: PCL is part of POSEIDON, the operational marine monitoring, forecasting and information system for the Greek Seas. It,is equipped with a special designed large calibration tank, two smaller glass tanks and a number of reference sensors and equipment for temperature, salinity, chlorophyll-a, turbidity and dissolved oxygen sensors calibration. The support team consists of the HCMR technicians and scientists who can perform a wide range of sensor calibrations (Temperature, Salinity, Oxygen, Chlorophyll, Turbidity).
Services currently offered: PCL can support relevant activities for a wide range of sensors (Temperature, Salinity, Oxygen, Chlorophyll, Turbidity) providing state-of-the-art calibration services. It has participated to the TNA activity in JERICO hosting user groups from Spain and Italy for sensors calibration and validation, including a novel pH sensor developed by a user group from Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
Modality of access under this proposal: MoA 2. Access to the Calibration Lab is daily all year round. The scientific and technical personnel of POSEIDON will carry out all operations, while training courses will be given on both hardware and software. UA: week (5 days of 8 hours). Modality used to declare access costs: TA-UC
Support offered under this proposal: The POSEIDON system offers an excellent scientific environment, covering a wide range of coastal environmental conditions; PCL in particular is equipped with state of the art instruments for the efficient calibration of several key oceanographic parameters. Furthermore there is the ability of instrument validation both in lab and in the field. The long experience of the scientific and technical personnel and their involvement in previous Trans National Access projects ensure the seamless operation. As a generic service, the whole system is offered as a test bench for existing and new sensors, while the different platforms allow a multi node study. Overall there is scientific, technical and logistics support in every link of the chain from the individual measurement to the final product. The support team consists of the HCMR technicians and scientists, who maintain the system, collect and analyze the samples and perform calibrations to the sensors.
| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| Ifremer | Ifremer Metrology Laboratory (METLAB) |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| www.dt.insu.cnrs.fr/gliders/gliders.php | Plouzané, France |
Description: The Ifremer metrology laboratory is in charge of the calibration of the oceanographic sensors used by Ifremer scientists and it also provides calibrations for external customers. The metrology laboratory deals with the following parameters: temperature and pressure (Cofrac accreditation for these two parameters), conductivity/salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH and fluorescence. The laboratory is equipped with high quality reference devices (fresh water and seawater calibration baths, standard platinum resistance thermometers, direct current resistance comparator bridges, fixed point cells, gauge pressure balance, reference salinometer, reference materials for fluorescence and turbidity calibrations and spectrophotometric pHT bench).
Services currently offered: The metrology laboratory provides: sensor calibrations for Ifremer scientists, external customers and oceanographers from other institutes in the framework of collaborations (European or international projects like Hypox, Jerico, Argo, ENV05 Ocean JRP,…); metrology trainings, audits and guidance for Ifremer laboratories or external collaborators and customers; Metrology expertise and studies in the framework of national, European and international projects (Aquaref, Jerico, Argo, ENV05 Ocean JRP, …).
Modality of access under this proposal: MoA2 – UA: week (5 days of 8 hours). Modality used to declare access costs: TA-CB
Support offered under this proposal: Visiting researcher will be given access to the laboratory facilities, experimental areas for doing calibration (conductivity/salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, pH and fluorescence). An engineer and a technician will be fully dedicated to the service for TNA.
| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| NIVA | NIVA Research Station (NRS) |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| www.niva.no | The Drøbak Sound in Oslo fjord |
Description: The Research Station at Solbergstrand performs large-scale experiments in marine ecology, sediment research, biogeochemistry, aquaculture and test technology for treating ballast water. The station has fiberglass and concrete seawater pools with volumes ranging from 20 to 550m3. A number of smaller testing facilities on land and the seabed outside the station have been built to manipulate and control marine ecosystems. The station has 10 laboratories for experimentation and analysis activities, among them an authorized infection lab for fish and a special lab for working with radioactive trace elements. Facilities at Solbergstrand covers e.g. hard-bottom and soft-bottom mesocosoms, brackish water systems, seaweed and kelp communities, pelagic communities from the upper water depths and continuous water supply from surface and 60 meter with measurements on temperature, salinity, pH and pCO2.
Services currently offered: The research station hosts visiting researcher to do research in marine ecology, marine biology, biogeochemistry and testing of advanced carbon systems sensor. The station is equipped with kitchen and a video-meeting room for 24 persons and two well-equipped workshops for preparations of experiments. NIVA staff participates to the planning of experiments and their logistical and technical implementation. Many national and international projects took advantage of the station, and research groups were visiting the stations for instance for studying the effects of hard-bottom communities for oil exposure and eutrophication and effects on soft bottom organisms on high CO2 and variable pH systems.
Modality of access under this proposal: MoA1 or MoA2. UA: week. Modality used to declare access costs: TA-CB.
Support offered under this proposal: Visiting researcher will be given access to the laboratory facilities, experimental areas for doing test with seawater supply from surface or deep water, access to sensor data already at the station (on-line temperature, salinity, pH and pCO2), access to their own test data, workshops and meeting rooms with video possibilities. They will have internet access and access to data by remote systems. They will be lodged in nearby cabins or hotels in the village Drøbak. NIVA staff will support them in the planning and implementation of experiments and sensors for intercalibrations. Special equipment and operator for high precision analysis of the marine carbonate systems (VINTA) will be made available for campaign and intercalibration studies of carbon system sensors.
| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| SYKE | SYKE Marine Research Centre, Laboratory (SYKE MRC-lab) |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| http://www.syke.fi/en-US | Helsinki, Finland |
Description: SYKE MRC-lab offers space and instrumentation for testing, validating and calibrating various optical sensors, like LED fluorometers, FRRF fluorometers, absorption meters, turbidity meters, particle size analysers, and imaging in-flow systems. It has up-to-date basic and advanced laboratory facilities, including flow cytometer, FlowCAM, microscopes, spectrofluorometers, plate readers, spectrophotometer with integrating sphere, FRRF fluorometers, controllable LED panels, nutrient analyzers and isotope laboratory. It host SYKE MRC phytoplankton culture collection, including hundreds of species strains, which can be used in instrument comparison and validation. Climatic growth chambers and controllable cultivation units (0.5– 300 L) are available for phytoplankton growth experiments. There is a weekly access to seawater samples taken from various locations from the Baltic Sea. Instrument tests and deployments can be performed together within SYKE Algaline TNA.
Services currently offered: SYKE MRC-lab organizes annual calibration workshops for optical ferrybox instrumentation, together with Finnish, Swedish and Estonian partners. Instrument tests, mainly for fluorometers, are carried out using natural samples and phytoplankton cultures with national and international SMEs.
Modality of access under this proposal: SYKE MRC-lab offers possibilities for testing optical sensors with various types of natural samples and phytoplankton cultures, and benchmarking the results against reference materials and methods. It offers facilities and technical and scientific support for studying effects of light, nutrients, temperature, salinity and pH on optical properties of phytoplankton, as required when validating optical sensors. Users may also participate in annual calibration workshops. MoA 2: Users may bring their own instrumentation to be tested along annual calibration workshop, or testing facilities are modified according to their needs. During all visits, use of TNA instrumentation will be done under guidance of SYKE support team. UA: 8 hour day. Modality used to declare access costs: TA-CB
Support offered under this proposal: SYKE support team consists of technicians and scientists regularly working with optical instruments and reference measurements. It provides assistance to users during testing of new instruments (experimental setups, technical issues, lab work assistance, safety). It assists in the selection of reference instrumentation and measuring protocols if needed and in analyzing the data from TNA instruments.
| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| CNRS | Sediment Profile Imager (SPI-H) |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| http://spiarcbase.epoc.u-bordeaux1.fr/ | UMR EPOC, Bordeaux-Arcachon, France |
Description: SPI-H allows for the in situ acquisition of sediment profile images in cohesive sediments, which constitutes a sound and cost-effective alternative to classical faunal analyses in assessing the ecological quality of benthic habitats (Labrune et al 2012, Romero et al 2013). This piece of equipment exists in two versions: (1) for shallow bottom (i.e., down to 30m) waters, which can be operated from small ships, and (2) for deep (i.e., down to 1000m) waters, requiring the use of a large oceanographic ship.
Services currently offered: Transport to the place of use, field deployment, image acquisition, transfer and storage, training to image processing and interpretation.
Modality of access under this proposal: MoA 2. UA: week. Modality used to declare access costs: TA-AC
Support offered under this proposal: The support includes shipping to the location of use, and assistance for the deployment of the profiler as well as for the acquisition of images and their transfer to a microcomputer by an experienced staff. The support also includes advices for the “manual” processing of the acquired images and their ecological interpretation by this staff. The use of the SPIArcBase software developed within the I3 project JERICO is provided as a virtual service access (cf. WP6).
| Short name of participant: | Name of the infrastructure: |
| IRIS | IRIS-BiotaGuard Integrated Coastal Observatory (BG-ICO) |
| Web site address: | Location: |
| Not set up yet | Stavanger byfjord, Norwegian Coast, N Atlantic Sea |
Description: BG-ICO is a unique infrastructure integrating physical, chemical and biological sensors, for on-site characterization of the environment status in the water column and the impacts of environment stresses on biological responses. A complimentary sensor array provides reliable and robust data in real time. The sensor suite includes CTD, oxygen optodes, PAH and chlorophyll fluorescence, pH, hydrophones, as well as complex biological sensors with real time behavioural and physiological sensing capabilities, as well as “offline” biomarker analysis (in vitro analysis). The adaptive sensor array has been designed with high focus on reliability and redundancy in addition to flexibility to support a rapidly growing sensor development. The topside equipment handles power and communication to multiple adaptive sensor arrays, and is set up to support a range of application with or without connection to existing infrastructure. The field version of the unit employs a custom control card and flash memory to store data from 16 sensors. Analysis of data currently provides a graphical display of a number of endpoints including valve movements per hour per organism, percentage of mussels with valves open or closed, mean valve gape per mussel. The BG-ICO is cabled to IRIS marine research station, which provides state-of-the-art analytical facilities, including several dedicated labs, i.e. chemical analytical lab (with several gas and liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry machines , state-of-the-art microbiology lab, molecular biology, ecotoxicology, unique mesocosm facility for controlled exposure of organisms to oil compound under simulated tropical to arctic environmental conditions.
Services currently offered: The infrastructure is newly deployed and is providing realtime data delivery, online display and data analysis capability for interpreting the biosensor data.
Modality of access under this proposal: MoA2. UA: day. Modality used to declare access costs: TA-AC
Support offered under this proposal: BG-ICO is proposed for TNA for deployment at a user given location outside Norway.
