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…

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…

Anouska Panton – Discovery 361 – 10.04°N, 28.40°W

My name is Anouska Panton and I am a PhD student in the Nutrient Biogeochemistry lab at the University of Liverpool. My principal role on board is to collect and analyse dissolved oxygen bottle samples from both the stainless steel and the titanium rosette which will be used to…

Joe Snow – Discovery 361 – 2.00°N, 25.30°W

My name is Joe Snow and I started my PhD in Southampton last September. In the six months that I’ve been at NOCS my time has been spend familiarising myself with the background information for my project along with preparing for this cruise.

Preparing for your first cruise is a…

Alex Forryan – Discovery 361 – 3.10°S, 25.10°W

Turbulence measurements: On RSS Discovery cruise D361 turbulence in the upper ocean is being measured at every station using an ISW free-fall vertical microstructure profiler.

Turbulence is an energetic, eddying, diffusive, and highly dissipative…

David Honey – Discovery 361 – 0.10°N, 24.30°W

Hello, my name is David Honey and I’m a PhD student from the University of Southampton working onboard the RRS Discovery (D361). I’m in my final year of study and the results collected from this cruise are likely to feature heavily in my thesis. My work is primarily focused…