During 2022 Caribbean Mapping expedition on NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer, I was lucky enough to be chosen as an intern and gain experience in hydrography and seafloor mapping while contributing to the expedition mission. Our mission was to map waters outside of Puerto Rico.

During my time on the EX2202 I had several roles. Our primary focus on the expedition was to map predetermined lines outside of Puerto Rico. Collectively, we mapped an area twice the size of Puerto Rico around (18,000 km^2). While we were mapping my roles were to clean the data in Quimera. Throwing out obvious outliers was the main purpose in this role. Secondly, observing the Knudsen which measured the backscatter and revealed whether surface of the ocean floor was rocky or soft sediment. During the observation all we do is keep an eye on depth of the ocean and keep the Knudsen in range. Third, every day we had to perform a daily product. We took all the data collected that day and made sure it is properly stored in the right folders. There were multiple daily products which were backscatter, water column, and multibeam. Finally, we had to conduct XBTs. Every four hour we sent an XBT down hundreds of meters to collect data (temperature, salinity). The objective while conducting the XBT were to make sure we didn’t see anything abnormal occurring in the ocean.