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Smooth Sailing

In August 2012, the US Coast Guard Cutter Healy sailed through unusually light sea ice across Hanna Shoal in the norhtern Chukchi Sea. The cruise was the first in the Hanna Shoal COMIDA project sponsored by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to document chemical, physical and biological characteristics such as circulation and ice conditions in this highly productive part of the ocean. Hanna Shoal is just adjacent to, and downstream from, several of the Chukchi Sea oil and gas lease areas, and the project will also examine levels of contaminants in already present in sediment and benthic organisms prior to the start of drilling.(Photo by Carin Ashjian, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)