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Laboratories
Our main complex on Star Island includes a fully equipped marine research laboratory, as well as an aquarium for public visitors. Here, our researchers can run many different kinds of analyses on samples of seawater and the plants, animals, and micro-organisms that live in it.
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Ships and Boats
Our fleet of boats includes:
- M/V Gulf Challenger -- a converted trawler used for taking large-scale survey samples of the sea life within the Gulf.
- M/V Auntie Sue -- A converted lobster-boat used for regular supply runs to Portsmouth Harbor and other simple duties around the Isles. It can be used as a dive boat by up to five divers.
- Motorboats -- Four RHIB (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat) type motorboats with capacities of up to eight people, using for running local surveys of sea-life and watching birds and whales. One RHIB is customarily carried onboard Gulf Challenger for use in pursuing whales and getting samples of sounds and sometimes skin tissues for DNA analysis.
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Airplane
Our Cessna 152 type light airplane is based at Hampton Airfield. We use it for flying aerial surveys over the Gulf, looking for whales, concentrations of seabirds, and concentrations of fish or plankton that might attract whales and seabirds.
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Aquaculture Project
Aquaculture is the science of 'farming the sea:' raising seafood such as fish and perhaps even edible seaweed in a semi-natural environment. SIMRI is currently cooperating with the University of New Hampshire and the Seacoast Science Center to study different methods of aquaculture. This large yellow-and-blue floating structure is the core of the aquaculture lab; you might occasionally see it floating near the Isles. It is not open to the public, although you can see some of the results in our aquarium.
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