exploration at sea

This morning we reached the most easterly point of the cruise, and carried out a CTD sampling station in the Skaggerak, nestled between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (red dot on map).

Today’s blog is by Evelyn Lawrenz, also from the University of Essex, describing her work to find out how ocean acidification affects the physiology of…

Today we continued our sampling of the aftermath of a very large coccolithophore bloom. We carried out another transect across the bright waters (see photo), approaching fairly close to Norway at our most northerly point.

The last two days have been quite gruelling because we have been stopping more often to collect water with the CTD and also…

Ever since the first week of the cruise, we have been intrigued by satellite images showing a large and intense coccolithophore bloom in the northern North Sea.

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It is now three weeks since we left port, with another two still to go until we set foot on dry land again. Soft fruit has of course long since run out but we are still plentifully supplied with apples and oranges.

This blog is written by Alex Poulton from the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton, on work to probe carbon cycling in…

Yesterday evening we passed between Dover and Calais and entered the North Sea. At one point we travelled quite close to a giant wind farm installed far out at sea, faintly and eerily visible through the light mist but, from where we were, completely silent.

Today’s blog entry, by Lizeth Avendaño from the National Oceanography Centre…

We had a slight delay yesterday evening. Near Lulworth Cove on the Dorset coast a scuba diver didn’t return to the surface with his dive companion. He couldn’t be found and was reported missing shortly after.

Today’s blog is by Mark Stinchcombe from the National Oceanography Centre at Southampton and is about nutrients.

We had…

We are currently carrying out a CTD station in view of the limestone promontory of Portland Bill, with Dorset’s ‘Jurassic Coast’ spread out in front of us.

Today’s blog entry, again by Dave Suggett, describes work done on the ship to examine phytoplankton pigments.

Another one of our interests on this cruise is to examine the…

Filtering for elemental composition (C:N:P)

After a couple of days steaming northeastwards from the open Atlantic we are now close to UK shores again, just south of Devon in the UK. As I write we are sitting in coccolithophore-rich waters. We are bathed in sunshine, a welcome change! In the next couple of days we will head…

Unfortunately no repeat of the wildlife spectacular during this morning’s CTD station. We are now headed northeast towards the western tip of Brittany in France.

Today’s blog entry is written by Darren Clark from Plymouth Marine Laboratory, who is looking at whether ocean acidification will affect cycling of the chemical element nitrogen in…

The CTD has been recovered from its journey to the deeps, and is now working again. We are all of us relieved to be able to get back to our normal pattern of work.

At 2am we collected the water for our third bioassay experiment. Everything went smoothly and efficiently and within a few hours we had dispensed water from the CTD bottles into the…