research expeditions

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

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.

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.

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 the 1st May.

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.

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.

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.

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

Saturday was so busy I forgot to write a blog entry!