Two entities involved in ocean research have confirmed that the “unidentified floating object” recovered by fishermen off Caramoran last May 6, 2024 was part of a scientific study.
It may be recalled that last week, a group of fishermen from barangay Dariao sighted the floating device at 12 noon that day, recovered it and informed barangay captain Abraham Sales of their find.
Accompanied by personnel of the 2nd Police Mobile Force Company, 3rd Maneuver Platoon, at the Sabloyon detachment, the village chief subsequently turned over the blue-colored object to the Caramoran police station.
The device bore the following markings: body number ARG06000m-08; serial number 61-5935; part number 61 7000m; and the manufacturer’s name – Seabird Scientific based at Bellevue, Washington, USA, as well as its email account and contact number.
In a statement of what it believes to be a tracking device, the Catanduanes Provincial Police Office, through Provincial Director PCol. Rayan Ador, immediately coordinated with the Catanduanes Maritime Law Enforcement Team of the Regional Maritime Unit 5 (CATMLET/RMU5) and the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT) for their possible assistance in identifying the object.
To ensure safety of all concerned, it likewise sought the help of the Provincial Explosive and Canine Unit (PECU) to make an initial examination if the object has the capability to cause harm, which turned out negative.
According to the Camp Camacho statement, the device has been turned over by the maritime unit to the Naval Intelligence and Security Group Southern Luzon, which will reportedly bring the same to the Maritime and Information Research and Development Center for a more exhaustive examination.
The Tribune, however, managed to contact the technical support group of Seabird Scientific, whose name was marked on a metal cylinder attached to the blue float.
In an email, Connor Bacon said that due to customer confidentiality, he cannot share information about the owners of the float but he said the device appears to be an Argo float utilizing Seabird’s SBE 61 CTD.
CTD stands for Conductivity, Temperature and Depth and the instrument is an oceanography probe used to measure the electrical conductivity, temperature, and pressure of seawater.
“These floats are used globally to track the health of our natural ecosystem, and in this particular case the majority of the pictured float was not created by us, just the CTD, which we sold to an OEM,” he explained, referring to an original equipment manufacturer, a company that makes parts or products for another company that sells them under its own name or uses them in their own products.
Since the floats only possess buoyancy engines for vertical mobility, not horizontal, they occasionally get caught in drag nets, Bacon added.
He stated that the floats are generally used by universities and other research organizations to passively track things like salinity, temperature, oxygen, and more in the areas where they are deployed.
They profile down to 2000m once every ten days (generally) and spend most of their time far below the surface, the Seabird Scientific support staffer bared.
“I suspect that the float has other contact information on it, for the owner, but if not I can’t see if they want us to recover it for them,” he said further.
“If you have the contact information for the person who currently has the float, that would be very helpful for us to reconnect the owner to their scientific equipment! If not, please let me know as well as I’ll be making a report to the customer since it’s no longer functioning,” Bacon told the Tribune.
On the other hand, Megan Scanderberg of the Argo ocean research program run by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography based at the University of California in San Diego, informed the Tribune in an email that she could not confirm that the device is an Argo float.
“The shape of the instrument does look similar to Deep Argo floats, but is not the same,” she said. “My guess is that this device is part of a scientific study, but not part of Argo.”
Argo is part of the Global Climate Observing System and Global Ocean Observing System OceanView and is a major contributor to the Global Ocean Data Assimilation Experiment (GODAE OceanPredict) whose mission is to improve global and regional ocean analysis and forecasting systems.
It depends on a global array of 4,000 floats distributed roughly every 3 degrees (300km) and observes the ocean year-round.
One of Argo’s floats, the Deep SOLO floats, are housed in glass spheres with plastic orange hard-hats protecting the relatively brittle glass, similar to the blue one found off Caramoran the other week.