Affectionately known as the K-O-K, the ship joined the fleet of UH marine expeditionary research vessels in 1994 and has been used across the Pacific Ocean on a variety of missions .
UH has completed 300 research cruises to Station ALOHA, about 60 miles north of Oʻahu, one of the best-sampled places in the world’s oceans with a decades-long record of how the ocean responds to climate change.
Researchers found that microbial communities in different regions of the Pacific Ocean displayed strikingly similar daily rhythms in their metabolism despite inhabiting extremely different habitats.