June 9, 2023 — The University of Alaska Fairbanks is using underwater autonomous vehicles in order to learn more about the ecosystem in the Gulf of Alaska.
After more than a month apart, Gretel and Shackleton began their reunion with a slow dance.
The autonomous underwater vehicles circled each other in the Gulf of Alaska in April, gathering data about ocean conditions: temperature, light, salinity, chlorophyll, fluorescence, and even acoustically determined densities of fish and zooplankton.
The torpedo-shaped vehicles, known informally as gliders, met after taking separate journeys to the middle of the continental shelf south of Seward, about 70 miles offshore. Seth Danielson, a University of Alaska Fairbanks oceanographer, expects it to become a spring ritual.