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Courtesy of SeafoodSource.com:

Catalina Sea Ranch (CSR), a 100-acre offshore shellfish farm headquartered at Terminal Island in the Port of Los Angeles, U.S., is collaborating with Verizon to collect a variety of marine data that will be shared with researchers via cloud technology.

CSR’s monitoring program will commence later this summer. The following research institutions will be analyzing the data: The Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, Scripps Institution for Oceanography, Southern California Marine Institute, California State University Long Beach, Ocean Studies Network, National Ocean Tracking Network, NOAA’s Integrated Ocean Observing System, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service Shellfish Aquaculture Laboratory in Milford and NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

Philip Cruver, president and CEO of Catalina Sea Ranch, told SeafoodSource that a “behemoth” like Verizon teaming with a start-up like CSR “bespeaks the promise of offshore aquaculture.”

“By leveraging Verizon’s 4G LTE network and Verizon Cloud, scientists, regulators and other stakeholders can monitor our shellfish ranch in real-time using the Internet,” said Cruver. “This will provide data for collaborative scientific analyses to develop best practices and responsible regulatory criteria for the future of marine spatial planning in U.S. Federal waters.”

CSR aims to provide U.S. seafood buyers with a domestic source of mussels, which it raises 6 miles off the California coast. The partnership with Verizon, said Cruver, will provide real-time data to conduct collaborative and transparent research for the advancement of offshore aquaculture. CSR team members, independent scientists, regulators and researchers can access that data via their smartphones, tablets or computers.