Southampton

On Monday most folks in the science party started research activity when we reached Goban Spur where we collected water and sediment samples. The sampling tubes on the megacorer fill with sediment as the instrument lands on the sea bed.

On Monday we experienced a challenge when recovery of the corer initially yielded very little sediment. Despite…

This morning, as we headed for Goban Spur, we were accompanied by a pod of common dolphin. Keeping pace easily with the ship, they jumped and flew through the choppy surface waters.

Once on station, the crew set to work deploying the conductivity, temperature and depth (CTD) sensor array on a metal frame also equipped with a rosette of 24 sampling…

Last night the team ensured that kit was secured and ready for the science programme. Sea water bottles were lashed together, boxes stowed carefully and equipment attached to work-benches... knowledge of DIY is handy when you work at sea!

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On Sunday 24 July the Royal Research Ship James Cook will head out from Falmouth into the deep Northeast Atlantic on a research expedition to the Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP).

The PAP site is the longest running deep-ocean time-series observatory in Europe, and is an important component of the EuroSITES and OceanSITES international networks of deep…

Professor Ed Hill , Executive Director of the National Oceanography Centre, receives an honorary doctorate from the University of Sheffield today.

Professor Hill is a physical oceanographer and an applied mathematics graduate of the University. He graduated from Sheffield in 1981 and completed his post-graduate studies at the University of Wales…

NOC came close to winning the aap3 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) category of the prestigious South Coast Business Awards earlier this month.

On Friday 15 July staff attended a prestigious award ceremony at the De Vere Grand Harbour Hotel, Southampton, to see how the bid, put together by Candice Snelling, Environment and Energy Advisor,…

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…

Today is the penultimate day of scientific data collection for most of us. At 5am we measured the last of the bottles from the fifth and last bioassay. Then, a few hours later, the CTD was lowered down on the start of another long journey to the deep ocean.

We have steamed out westwards to an ocean area known as the Rockall Trough, a deepwater…

When we got up this morning we were met with a surprising and rather wonderful scene (see photo). It was as if we had suddenly been transported to a different climate overnight, or to a placid lake.

Today’s blog is written by Tingting Shi from the National Oceanography Centre Southampton.

The sun was out in a blue sky and the…

We are steaming rapidly northwards parallel to the west coast of Norway. Soon we will reach our most northerly latitude, 60°N, and turn westwards for home.

In today’s blog Sophie Richier describes some additional science that she is carrying out, over and above managing the bioassay experiments.

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