Southampton

This last blog entry is by Toby Tyrrell and Eric Achterberg. Today is the end of the cruise for most of us, and a welcome chance to relax a little, catch up on sleep and then start writing the cruise report and packing the equipment.

The cruise has gone very well, with all of our planned work carried out and much more besides. We have collected…

The Shipping Forecast Cruise?

We are almost getting into a routine now as we get through the second cruise day, settle into our scientific nests, complete our fourth CTD station, start preparations for the first deck incubation experiment, and converge on Mingulay for the deep-sea coral reef collection.

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Today we left the dock in Liverpool quite early, at about 8:30. We were delayed slightly as waited to exit through a tidal lock. Then we were on our way, out into the turbid, brown-coloured waters of Liverpool Bay where we carried out our first CTD station at about midday.

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On the 6 June 2011, the UK research vessel the RRS Discovery left Liverpool docks to embark on the first research cruise in a large UK programme studying the impacts of ocean acidification.

On the cruise, researchers are investigating the impacts of changing seawater chemistry on:

1. marine organisms and ecosystems,
2. …

On 9 May 2011, the RRS James Cook set sail from Govan, Glasgow, on a 34-day expedition to study seabed habitats and sedimentary processes in the North-East Atlantic Ocean.

The team, which combines scientists, technicians and crew from five different institutes, aim to:

• Investigate different benthic biotopes, including the…

In June 2011, the UK’s National Oceanography Centre (NOC) is to take part in an ambitious project to ‘spread the word’ about marine research and the importance and vulnerability of the world’s oceans, with particular focus on the Mediterranean and Ligurian/northern Tyrrhenian Seas.

The project ‘Environmental Impacts Know No Boundaries: A Marine…

Writing in the scientific journal Nature, scientists have called for increased discussion of independent monitoring of deep-sea hydrocarbon industry activity with the aim of obtaining a better understanding of its ecological impact.

The hydrocarbon industry is increasingly searching for hydrocarbon resources at much greater depths and…

On 9 May, RRS James Cook set sail from Glasgow in the direction of Rockall Trough, Rockall Bank and Hatton Basin, to find out what happens to the seabed fauna in a deep-water trawling area if you leave it undisturbed several years.

The deep-water banks and basins to the northwest of the UK are rich habitats for a variety of benthic species…

Professor Gwyn Griffiths has been announced as the National Oceanography Centre’s inaugural Chief Technologist. The announcement was made by Director of Science and Technology, Professor Andrew Willmott, at the Directorate’s symposium held in the Midlands in March.

There will only be one NOC Chief Technologist at any one time and the title signals…

Stephanie Henson of the Ocean Biogeochemistry and Ecosystems group, National Oceanography Centre, was announced as the winner of the Early Career Research Award at the Science and Technology Symposium earlier this month.

Stephanie’s winning paper was: Henson et al. (2010) Detection of anthropogenic climate change in satellite records of ocean…