Southampton

The rebuild of Isis is gathering pace as the remotely operated vehicle is repaired following a shipboard incident at the start of the year.

It was in January near the Antarctic Peninsula, during the James Cook cruise JC055, that Isis was struck by the ship’s port propeller during deployment and was severely damaged.

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The National Oceanographic Library was officially opened today by renowned oceanographer Professor Walter Munk, at an event at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton.

NOCS has recently completed a major refurbishment of the National Oceanographic Library, the UK’s most extensive collection of oceanographic literature and one of the largest…

A formal project is now in place to create NOC’s new, national autonomous underwater vehicle facility. Gwyn Griffiths, Head of Ocean Technology and Engineering, is managing the project to deliver the facility, which has been christened MARS (Marine Autonomous and Robotic Systems).

MARS will be the UK’s main centre for research and…

A unique, round-the-world sailing expedition that will monitor the marine environment in all the Earth’s oceans, starts from La Spezia, Northern Italy on Saturday 24 September.

The yacht, Kaitek will circumnavigate the globe on a four-year voyage gathering data for oceanographic research. The project was conceived by Environmental Ocean…

A shipboard expedition off Norway, to determine how methane escapes from beneath the Arctic seabed, has discovered widespread pockets of the gas and numerous channels that allow it to reach the seafloor.

Methane is a powerful “greenhouse” gas and the research, carried out over the past week aboard the Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross…

The science marathon is arriving to its last stage. A marathon is not an explosive running in which you just think about running at fast as possible, it requires a complete control of the time and understanding of how your body is behaving and acting in every single new step.

This cruise has been a marathon, were the timings and equipment have been…

Another grey, cold and exciting day in the Arctic. Today, SYSIF (our deep towed sonar system) have a day off and it is now the turn for our air-gun (a bubbles powerful weapon) and our 60-metre streamer (a long tail with receivers) to come into action. Before that, two of our OBEM (seafloor electromagnetic receiver) which look like a four legs octopus are…

Our cruise to the PAP site has finally come to an end and after a successful couple of days at the Porcupine Seabight the James Cook steamed back to Falmouth.

Although everyone was excited by the prospect of fresh fruit, crunchy vegetables, and yes, family and friends too, the joy of returning to “normality” is always accompanied by some sadness.…

Up in the Artic, at this time of the year, there are still 24 hours of light. It is such a weird sensation arriving to your cabin at 4am (after some hours looking at seismic lines, maps of the seafloor, and images of bubble plumes) and having to close the window blind!

Then, after a swaying sleep, a fusion of a blue-grey sky and the ocean covers you…

Cruise JR269A, west of Svalbard: Understanding gas escape from the ocean floor

Methane hydrate is formed from methane and water at high pressures and low temperatures, both of which are found at the bottom of the deep ocean.

It is very widespread in the parts of the deep ocean nearest to the continents. If the ocean warms…