LATEX, the Louisiana-Texas Physical Oceanography Program. 

LATEX is a three-part, $16.2 million federal initiative funded by the U.S. 
Minerals Management Service 

(MMS) of the Department of the Interior.  The study will aid MMS in reducing 
risks associated with oil and gas operations on the continental shelf along the 
Texas and Louisiana coasts from the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Rio 
Grande.

Begun in September 1991, it is the largest physical oceanography program ever 
undertaken in the Gulf.  It will provide MMS with an extensive set  of 
environmental data and a physical understanding of the dynamics of water 
movement on the shelf.  The program consists of three major parts: LATEX A, 
B, and C, conducted by the Texas A&M University System (TAMUS), Louisiana 
State University (LSU), and Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), 
respectively.

To conduct LATEX A, the Texas Institute of Oceanography (TIO) and the Texas 
Engineering Experiment Station (TEES) assembled a team of physical 
oceanographers and field logisticians from units of the TEES Civil Engineering 
Division and the TAMU College of Geosciences and Maritime Studies including 
the Department of Oceanography, the Geochemical and Environmental 
Research Group, and the Galveston campus of the College.  Subcontractors 
are: Evans-Hamilton, Inc., a Houston-based oceanographic business; the 
Coastal Studies Institute of Louisiana State University; and the Maine 
Maritime Academy.

LATEX A will observe currents and waves, water properties (such as 
temperature, salinity and nutrients), and air-sea interaction over the Texas-
Louisiana shelf, with the objective of providing data adequate to describe and 
better understand the circulation and transport of water, nutrients and other 
properties over that shelf.  LATEX A also will obtain data collected 
concurrently by other programs, including ongoing programs of the oil and gas 
industry and the National Weather Service to monitor marine meteorological 
conditions using buoys and of TAMU to collect data on water properties across 
the Texas shelf from ships of opportunity.  A comparison of field measurements 
with the results of numerical models of the circulation will be performed.  At 
the conclusion of the field program, LATEX A will synthesize, interpret, and 
report its data, together with existing data syntheses and data collected by 
other components of the LATEX field program.

"The movement of Gulf water influences the stability of structures such as oil 
platforms, the transport of pollutants (such as from oil spills or discharge of 
drilling fluids), and the ecosystems that may be impacted by oil and gas 
operations.  We are seeking increased understanding of these water movements 
and the properties they transport," said Worth D. Nowlin Jr., LATEX A project 
manager at Texas A&M University.Scientists from the Coastal Studies 
Institute, the Coastal Ecology Institute, and the Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory 
of LSU joined with scientists from LUMCON, TAMU, Evans-Hamilton, Inc., and 
the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences of the College of William and Mary.  
To conduct the LATEX B study, this consortium of scientists will collect 
chemical and physical information on the Mississippi and Atchafalaya River 
plume, which extends along the Texas-Louisiana coast as far as the Texas-
Mexican border.  The variability and dynamics of the river outflows and the 
plume will be measured and analyzed.  The nature and fate of critical chemical 
pollutants discharged into the Gulf by the rivers will be studied.  Nutrients, 
zooplankton, phytoplankton, and sedimentation rates will be measured along 
the plume and such features as fronts and hypoxic areas will be characterized.  
Satellite remote sensing of thermal and visible conditions will be used to 
provide a continuous, real-time history of the evolution of the plume.

LATEX C will be carried out by researchers at SAIC and the University of 
Colorado.  Loop Current eddies, slope eddies, and squirts and jets within the 
Gulf of Mexico will be located and tracked by air-deployed temperature profiling 
instruments and drifting buoys.  Using these data, scientists will assess the 
impact of these Gulf-wide, circulation features on shelf circulation and will 
identify the processes that interact with the shelf.

Each part of LATEX has a centralized data management structure under a 
Data Manager for quality control and archival of the large data sets being 
collected.  Data also will be shared with other scientists doing work in the 
Gulf.  Information on LATEX and other science activities in the Gulf of Mexico 
can be obtained through Omnet SCIENCEnet, an electronic mail system, on 
the bulletin board GULF.MEX.