Digital cameras make it easy to take a lot of photos – so many, in fact, that they can be difficult to sort through.
Try having more than 250,000. That is how many images researchers took of the ocean floor last summer as part of a new approach to estimating the mid-Atlantic sea scallop population. Now they are tasked with examining each photo, searching for scallops within the frame and counting exactly how many and what size.
It’s a big job, and one in which they hope to enlist the help of science-minded volunteers. Art Trembanis, associate professor of geological sciences in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, is developing a website where citizen scientists can log in, pull up individual photos and click on the small, sandy circles indicating scallops.
“We are excited to have the public assist in this,” Trembanis said.
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