Southern Ocean

The location of an underwater volcanic vent, marked by a low-lying plume of shimmering water, has been revealed by scientists at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton.

Writing in the journal PLOS ONE the researchers describe how the vent, discovered in a remote region of the Southern Ocean, differs from what we have come to recognise as ‘…

An expedition to the icy waters of Antarctica has begun aboard the RRS James Clark Ross. The five-week mission will study the effect of ocean acidification in the Southern Ocean.

During the expedition, scientists will study the impact of the changing chemistry on marine organisms and ecosystems, on the cycling of carbon and nutrients in the…

The RRS James Cook is in the Southern Ocean on a 51-day expedition to look at deep water mixing in this turbulent ocean.

Two young scientists aboard, Alex Brearley and Katy Sheen, are running an expedition blog from the ship at https://dimesuk3.blogspot.com.

The expedition, led by Alberto…

Geo-engineering schemes aimed at tackling global warming through artificial iron fertilisation of the oceans would significantly affect deep-sea ecosystems, according to research involving scientists from the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) with former Ocean and Earth Science research students of the University of Southampton, also based at the…

Methane-rich sediments off South Georgia

The sediments just offshore Bird Island, South Georgia are rich in gases such as methane. We sampled this site last year on our way to the South Sandwich Islands and now have returned to complete our study of this area.

We have just 24 hours to collect mud from the surface and…

Scientists aboard the Royal Research Ship James Cook have discovered a new set of deep-sea volcanic vents in the chilly waters of the Southern Ocean. The discovery is the fourth made by the research team in three years, which suggests that deep-sea vents may be more common in our oceans than previously thought.

Using an underwater camera…

Vent Discovery in Adventure Caldera

Friday night in the SHRIMP* van and we have been videoing the seafloor for three hours inside the Adventure Caldera, which geophysicists from the British Antarctic Survey discovered in 2010.

Leigh Marsh, Graduate School NOCS marine biology PhD student was leading the watch in the van…

Coring at night

We have videoed the many different areas of venting at the seafloor in the base of the Kemp Caldera and now are spending a cold, snowy night coring the mud from the seafloor. Our night shift work is to collect mud from around the areas of diffuse hydrothermal flow.

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Sampling the Kemp Caldera

Our final site in the East Scotia Sea is an 8 km-diameter caldera on the flank of a shallow seamount at the southern end of the South Sandwich Island Arc.

The vents in the centre of the caldera are sulphur rich and are surrounded by huge numbers of clams, seven-armed sea stars, anemones, sponges…

RRS James Cook in transit to the South Sandwich Islands

We have finished our work in the Bransfield Strait and now have a three day passage to our next working area near the southern most South Sandwich Island, Thule.

Our route takes us north-east past Gibbs, Elephant and Clarence Islands on a beautiful sunny…