research at sea

A mystery in the ocean near Antarctica has been solved by a team including researchers at the National Oceanography Centre who have long puzzled over how deep- and mid-depth ocean waters are mixed.

They found that sea water mixes dramatically as it rushes over undersea mountains in Drake Passage – the channel between the southern tip of South…

The most detailed photographic survey of the abyssal ocean floor has been taken by the National Oceanography Centre’s robot sub, Autosub6000 – some half a million photos that will be stitched together to form a ‘street view’ map of the North Atlantic’s Porcupine Abyssal Plain and its inhabitants.

Forward and down-facing cameras mounted on the…

Cruise JC071 has really started for the RRS James Cook; the pilot has just left the ship, close to three hours since we left Berth S at Avonmouth Docks.

As the weather forecast is for rough weather the 21 scientists and technicians led by Richard Lampitt, spent this morning ensuring all the equipment and boxes brought onto the ship in the…

New life forms filmed for upcoming National Geographic Channel series.

The Irish-led VENTuRE scientific expedition aboard the national research vessel RV Celtic Explorer has discovered a previously uncharted field of hydrothermal vents along the mid-Atlantic ridge – the first to be explored north of the Azores. The mission, led by Dr Andy…

Today our planned programme of work has been thwarted by poor weather, with the sea being too rough to safely put the CTD in the water. We are currently running away westwards from the Skaggerak, trying to find calmer waters in the central North Sea.

Today’s blog is by Steve Archer from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, listing some of his…

Today has been a red-letter day in the cruise calendar, with two major activities starting up. Through the first half of the night the ship steamed further north towards the Outer Hebrides, in the weather forecast area “Hebrides”, unsurprisingly. Eventually we arrived at our target site close to the islands of Mingulay and Barra.

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The UK research vessel RRS Discovery left Liverpool yesterday on the first research cruise specifically to study ocean acidification in European waters. Twenty-four scientists from eight different UK institutes, led by the National Oceanography Centre Southampton, will carry out the science.

The cruise will range across northwest European…

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…

Professor Eric Achterberg, University of Southampton – Discovery 361

We have returned home this week from our UK GEOTRACES cruise in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The cruise (7 February – 19 March 2011) was part of our project funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council.

The main aim of the project is to…

Dr Claire Mahaffey and Dr Sarah Reynolds, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool, UK – Discovery 361

Hi, I’m Sarah Reynolds and I’m a post doctoral research associate working with Dr Claire Mahaffey and Prof. Ric Williams at the University of Liverpool. Our work is focused on determining the magnitude and…