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12 Feb – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 4

Posted: 14 February 2011
Frame grab from SHRIMP footage of 3-metre high active chimney

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.

11 Feb – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 4

Posted: 14 February 2011
Megacorer being recovered in the short Southern Ocean night

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.

10 Feb – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 4

Posted: 10 February 2011
Black-browed albatrosses off the stern of the RRS James Cook

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.

Understanding patterns of seafloor biomass

Posted: 9 February 2011
Global seafloor invertebrate biomass (image: Dan Jones, NOC; data courtesy Chih-Lin Wei, Dept. of Oceanography, Texas A&M Univ.)

Analysis of a comprehensive database has revealed strong links between biological productivity in the surface oceans and patterns of biomass and abundance at the seafloor, helping to explain large regional differences.

Ocean and Earth Day at NOC Southampton

Posted: 8 February 2011
Ocean and Earth Day

Saturday 19 March 2011

National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (through Dock Gate 4)

10:30am – 4:00pm (last admission 3:30pm)

7 Feb – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 4

Posted: 8 February 2011
Jeff Hawkes on the deck of RRS James Cook

Geochemistry sampling at the East Scotia Ridge

4 Feb – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 3

Posted: 8 February 2011
Laura Hepburn wrapped up warm and working on her sediment samples

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.

1 February – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 3

Posted: 2 February 2011
Livingstone Island

The Axe, Bransfield Strait

Our final site within the Strait is aptly named ‘The Axe’. This is the least studied site that we have chosen to study and first we need to map the seafloor.

NOC and KORDI to promote collaboration

Posted: 1 February 2011
Dr Kang and Prof. Willmott at KORDI for the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding

On 25 January 2011, Dr Jung-Keuk Kang, President of the Korea Ocean Research Development Institute (KORDI), Republic of South Korea, signed a new Memorandum of Understanding with the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), which is intended to enhance existing links between our two organisations and develop new collaborative research opportunities.

31 Jan – East Scotia Ridge expedition blog – week 3

Posted: 31 January 2011
Darren showing how it should be done in the galley

Three Sisters, Bransfield Strait

We have spent the weekend surveying our second volcanic target in Bransfield Strait: the Middle of the Three Sisters. Again we use the plume sniffing approach followed by video surveys of the seafloor before choosing our coring sites.