The SANDMAN project is a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in which Dr Anna Lichtschlag will develop a new instrument to measure chemical gradients of important biogeochemical compounds, such as nutrients (nitrate, phosphate), metals (iron) and carbonate system parameters (total alkalinity) directly within the seafloor sediment, in particular the porewater, by combining cutting-edge Lab-on-Chip sensors with deep sea platform technology that can operate in extreme environments in the oceans over longer periods of time.

The Lab-On-Chip sensors, which use miniaturized standard laboratory analyses on an automated microfluidic platform, are developed at the National Oceanography Centre and only recently become available for these kinds of longer-term applications.

PI: Dr Anna Lichtschlag
Email: alic at noc.ac.uk

Dates
–
Funding

UKRI – Future Leader Fellowship Cohort 7

Aim

During the SANDMAN fellowship Dr Anna Lichtschlag will lead the sensor adaptation and adjustment of the hardware for conditions in sediments, the design of a filtration system to separate the porewater from the solid phase of the sediment and the combination of these components in a unique seafloor instrument. The functionality of this instrument will first be tested in a controlled laboratory environment, then in a coastal field station and afterwards it will be used to answer scientifically important questions about the processes linked to nutrient recycling and carbon degradation in currently underexplored areas such as permeable coastal sediments and deep-sea trenches.

This unique observing instrument can transform our capacity for the urgently needed benthic biogeochemical analysis from a human-dependent, single-point and costly sampling to a technology-based long-term, high-quality, reliable and easy-to-use approach for remote biogeochemical measurements. The SANDMAN system will be widely applicable from the coast to the deep sea and from pole to pole for marine monitoring and industrial applications and thus will pave the way to novel synoptic seafloor observations, providing data to support and inform stakeholders such as government/non-governmental organisations, industries, scientists and the general public on environmental health and potential hazards.