To collect data, the ship stops at roughly 300 randomly selected points between the shore and the shelf break from Texas to Florida. At each station the fishermen trawl for exactly 30 minutes at 2.5 knots to see what species are below. Scientists also measure environmental variables at each sampling station such as temperature, salinity, and oxygen level. The survey area is vast, and the task of sampling at 300 stations seems both Herculean and inadequate at the same time. In fact, a single surv