research expeditions

• Scientists from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) have deployed ocean robots and moorings to collect key data in the Gulf Stream
• Processes within the Gulf Stream are thought to play a key role in the uptake of CO₂ from the atmosphere
• Scientists are investigating how…

Helping assess volcanic hazards is the next task for National Oceanography Centre scientists working in the Caribbean Sea.

Following the successful investigation of hydrothermal vents in the Cayman Trough, scientists on board the RRS James Cook have moved on to study the volcanic island of Montserrat for the next leg of the expedition.…

The BBC’s Science Editor, David Shukman, is aboard the Royal Research Ship James Cook as scientists from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, explore the deepest hydrothermal vents yet discovered on the planet, in the Cayman Trough beneath the Caribbean Sea.

David’s latest report is on…

An expedition to the icy waters of Antarctica has begun aboard the RRS James Clark Ross. The five-week mission will study the effect of ocean acidification in the Southern Ocean.

During the expedition, scientists will study the impact of the changing chemistry on marine organisms and ecosystems, on the cycling of carbon and nutrients in the…

We awoke this morning to the sight of land (Wales) in the distance. The first land we have seen since Lundy Island, mid afternoon on 1 May.

The lab equipment is being packed away and all the paper work is being completed for the end of the cruise. We have had the group photo, so we really are getting close to the end. There hasn’t been enough time…

We will be back in UK waters shortly so underway sampling will start again. Everyone else is starting to pack up their equipment and looking forward to all the analysis of the frozen filters and samples when they get back to NOC.

…

Today has been a quiet day in that everyone has been bent over their laptops securing their data, and log sheets and writing their sections of the cruise reports.

All except the underway samplers who have continued to sample until we left international waters. We are now transiting Irish waters, and will be until tomorrow when we will turn north up…

Today was programmed to be the last on site, so there was lots to be packed in. The last Megacore was completed over night, and the PELAGRAs floats were recovered after 48 hours deployed.

This morning there was a deep CTD and the plan was for a quick turnround and then two more CTDs and a SAPS dip. But the weather has started to turn nasty and the…

Time out here is precious so the nights are busy too. Corinne deployed a new zooplankton net overnight; the last one got ripped as it was hauled back on board and the Mega Corer was deployed again.

Henry, Brian, Sara and Kerstin have worked hard most nights processing the cores when they arrive back on deck. The amphipod trap was recovered in the…

The schedule was changed this morning so that PAP3 could be redeployed.

The deck crew will need all the available space for the PAP1 deployment which will now be just after mid-day. The redeployment went smoothly and PAP3 is now firmly in place. Next on the schedule was the Bathysnap deployment. This is a rig with a timelapse camera system which…