Late last fall two underwater gliders were deployed in Massachusetts Bay to study winter spawning activity of Atlantic cod. The gliders, a type of autonomous underwater vehicle that uses buoyancy-based propulsion and wings to move up and down throughthe water, followed programmed track lines heading south from Salem toward Plymouth during the three-week project, recording both natural and man-made sounds.The gliders will provide additional information to that collected by six underwater recording units deployed in the Bay last October by NOAA. Using these combined systems, scientists hope to confirm the location and duration of known coastal cod spawning grounds as well as identify possible new spawning areas in both state and federal waters.
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