Climate change (reflected by Arctic sea ice decreasing by approximately 9% per decade) and increased human use of the region influences ocean circulation and ecosystem dynamics, impacting biological productivity, marine mammals, and fish stocks. Sikuliaq has accommodations for up to 26 scientists and students per cruise, including those with disabilities, to conduct multidisciplinary studies on these complex issues, and to facilitate broadband real-time virtual participation of classroom students in expeditions, including remotely operated underwater vehicles.
News
UAF researcher sails north in search of deep-sea answer
August 11, 2021
How one of the two large basins underlying the Arctic Ocean formed during the Mesozoic Era remains a mystery to scientists. It’s one that geophysics professor Bernard Coakley of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute is hoping to unravel as he leads an international research project that set sail this week aboard the UAF research vessel Sikuliaq.
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Sikuliaq to embark on limited research cruise in May
April 30, 2020
Special permission has been granted for a small team of researchers from the College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to collect water samples in the northern Gulf of Alaska.
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UAF researcher to discuss Arctic processes
April 10, 2019
A University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher will talk about a research program geared at understanding variables that influence spring productivity in the Arctic from 3:30-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 17, on the Fairbanks campus.
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Sikuliaq researchers find odd, abundant animal-plant plankton
August 15, 2018
The ability to conduct this procedure on a ship like Sikuliaq, to isolate these cells and preserve them quickly after they have come out of the ocean, allows researchers like Western Washington University’s Suzanne Strom to make some pretty radical observations about life at the bottom of the food web in the Gulf of Alaska.
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