FSML: A small nearshore research vessel for the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology

The Oregon Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) is the University of Oregon’s marine research and teaching laboratory.

OIMB is located in the mouth of the Coos Estuary, 2 km from the open ocean, and offers unparalleled access to diverse and largely undisturbed habitats, and an especially rich flora and fauna.

Despite the proximity of OIMB to the outer coast, access to the nearshore open ocean has historically been severely limited by the lack of an appropriate nearshore operations vessel for accessing subtidal habitats close to emergent rocks, reefs, and kelp forests.

This capacity award funds an 8 m coastal nearshore operations research vessel which will help OIMB overcome this outer coast access problem.

Like OIMB, most coastal marine stations are situated in protected bays or inland waters; the field-based research that gets done at these places is commonly in areas where scientists have the least problems with access, such as salt marshes, intertidal regions, inland waters, bays, and estuaries. There has been relatively little research on the ecology of the nearshore zones (e.g.,