Seamounts expedition blog

Final post from the board of the RRS James Cook!

2011-12-20T10:30:00.000Z

This morning we arrived in Algoa bay and, now, we are doing a post-cruise calibration of the echosounders. It will be critical to ensure the instruments have been stable over the expedition, so our data are comparable to other people’s work.
Tomorrow morning we will enter Port Elizabeth and disembark, which means that today we still have a lot to do; finalizing cleaning, packing, clearing our cabins, etc.

This is probably the last blog post I am writing aboard the ship for this expedition and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the followers and occasional readers of this blog (over 15,000 pageviews since the beginning from a lot of different countries – U.K., Switzerland, United States, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Canada and others).

It has been wonderful experience for me.
Firstly being on board a research vessel again! Even if it was not my first time at sea I think that every research cruise is unique in a way or another.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have been allowed to participate in this expedition in the context of my work at IUCN for the Global Marine and Polar Programme (http://www.iucn.org/marine).
I have learnt a lot about deep-sea life. I witnessed impressive images of human impacts. I saw beautiful animals and amazing scenes of the bottom of the sea.

Secondly, it was the first time I was in charge of a blog. And believe me I have learnt a lot and it has been a very formative exercise. Here, I would like to deeply thank the people on board who have read and corrected my texts and have contributed to the blog. I have a special thought for David Staples who read my blog post every single day. He was generally the first person to whom I dare to show my text. He helped and encouraged me a lot (Thank you very much, dear David!). I want to sincerely thank Alex Rogers, Expedition Leader, who never complained about me intruding and interrupting to ask him to check, improve and approve my texts before I posted them. Thanks a lot, Alex, for having me on board!

Thank you also very much to all participants - technicians, crew and scientists - for your contributions. Through your work you have inspired me. It has been a pleasure meeting, working and sharing this expedition with you.

Cheers,
Aurélie

(aurelie.spadone@iucn.org)

PS: I will do my best to update the blog in the next few months with post-cruise results and news. (Please note that if you sign up via the ‘Follow the expedition by email’, I will not have access to your email address but you will get automatically a notification each time there is something new on the blog.)

Deep Space Life

2011-12-19T17:53:00.001Z

By Pierre-Yves Cousteau

N.B. Pierre-Yves Cousteau is an IUCN Goodwill Ambassador. See link: http://www.iucn.org/about/union/iucn_ambassadors/pierre_yves_cousteau/

In 1965, Jacques Cousteau built a house 100 meters below the surface of the sea. One of the six oceanauts who lived and worked in that house for one month recalls his first excursion on the seabed at such depths. "As soon as as I exit the sphere, I am struck by three things: hoses and cables replace the bubbles... the seabed replaces the surfaces... and night replaces day."

I remember sitting in a college classroom and watching a slideshow of the first spaceship revealing its approach and landing on planet Venus (the Russian Venera mission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera). I was amazed by each new image, progressively revealing the unseen surface of the planet. Although life might be present inside its thick cloud cover, the unveiled surface resembled a scorched potato.

The Seamounts Expedition makes me feel this way. Like exploring a new world. Deep beneath the surface of our oceans, there are vast desert canyons and plains that the human eye has never seen. And in the immensities of space, the physical laws conspire to create an oasis for life, revealing astonishing shapes and colors to the robotic visitor. At the very same time it was discovering these oasis of life, the Seamount Expedition observed their blind destruction by humans.

When will we realize the clemency of the physical conditions that keep us alive in this district of the universe? We are at the interface, between our frail atmosphere and the empty seas, on the shoreline between life and death in a seemingly desert solar system. Life is a chance, and as far as we know it only exists right here, on a planet we mistakingly call Earth when it is mostly covered in Water. We must care for it, or we will watch it trickle through our open hands.

Group Picture

2011-12-19T15:22:00.000Z

A visit to the engine room!

2011-12-18T12:37:00.002Z

Clare and I enjoyed a tour of the engine room yesterday. It was very interesting. You feel like you enter another world: the heart of the ship …

First you entered the control room, a small space with a lot of screens. Communication with the bridge is done from here and the engineers can control the different machinery of each engine. Then with proper protection for your ears, you reach the place where the 4 engines of the ship are. Generally, two of them are running at the same time. It is hot and very noisy - not an easy place to work in - but clean!
Each engine has 9 cylinders. Injectors and exhaust valves are quite impressive in size particularly compared to car engines.
The ship tanks contain 800 cubic meters of diesel plus there is a dedicated low sulphur-diesel tank.
The engines convert thermal energy from the combustion of the fuel to electricity which drives the two shafts to which the two propellers of the ship are attached.

This is how the ship moves, but a lot of other things happen down here: the desalination of seawater to freshwater (for the showers and sinks), the treatment of sewage before its discharge in the sea, the cooling of the water used to cool the engines, the cleaning of the engine oil, … etc.

Slide show!

2011-12-17T15:22:00.003Z

Tonight we are going to have a presentation by David Shale of his best photographs of fauna taken during the cruise. David is the professional photographer on board (see blog post 11 Dec).

Let me show you two stunning examples of David’s breathtaking work ... which will be a treat for us tonight!

Summary

2011-12-16T14:44:00.002Z

In the last six weeks, we have been exploring five seamounts of the South West Indian Ocean Ridge.
The expedition took place on board the RRS James Cook (U.K. Natural Environment Research Council research vessel). 54 persons were on board made up of crew, scientists, and technicians.

We found that the five seamounts are very different in terms of their size, their topography, their fauna and their diversity and abundance of marine life. Even the characteristics of their surrounding waters are different. We have witnessed evidence of human impacts on all of them.

‘Coral’ seamount was certainly the most preserved and richest in life. ‘Melville’ and ‘Midde-of-What’ were seamounts that show us two faces of these deep-sea habitats: one very rich, beautiful and with a diverse fauna, and the other quite devastated, with trawl marks and fishing gear on the bare seabed. ‘Sapmer’ was the seamount where we saw the fishing boat actively trawling. Most of the seabed has been damaged by trawling there, and we saw a lot of evidence of human activities on the seafloor, but inaccessible areas of the seamount still supported abundant life. On ‘Atlantis’ we saw a lot of urchins, and also giant coral trees. Some parts have been fished but the rocky seabed makes it more difficult for trawlers to work these areas. We saw patches of extremely rich fauna on rocks next to areas covered with debris and coral rubble. The top of the seamount, which is really flat, was mostly barren.

We can now count ourselves among a privileged few that have seen live images of these incredible features 1,000m and more below the surface of the oceans in that cold, dark and silent realm.

Amongst other wonders, we have seen beautiful and extremely elegant sea-spiders, 6-gilled sharks, big bamboo corals, bright pink shrimps, pencil urchins, snow white sea stars, escaping lobsters, coral gardens, tethered red jellyfish, purple coral with snake sea stars on it, angry looking crabs, fly-trap anemones, delicate glass sponges with their associated shrimp in couples, funny looking big eyes fish.… and the list goes on.
Let us not forget the spectacular images of the hydrothermal vents and some bellowing black smoke from their tall chimneys – simply amazing (see blog post 27 Nov).

Packing!

2011-12-15T11:46:00.001Z

We can summarise the activities that go on around the ship today in one single word: packing.

In fact, that is not as simple as it seems. You have to make sure that every sample is in the right box correctly labelled and addressed to the right location. You also have to estimate the total volume and weight for freight purposes, indicate the chemicals used for preservation etc. As another research cruise will start just after ours, every space of the ship must be cleared and clean.

We have to be careful while walking in the lab … as half-full boxes are appearing everywhere!

Second mooring recovered!

2011-12-14T12:34:00.001Z

Our last activity on ‘Atlantis’ bank area was to recover the second ‘whale bones and wood logs’ mooring. The first one was on ‘Coral’ seamount and we recovered it at the beginning of the cruise (see blog post 20 Nov). Both were deployed during the previous expedition in 2009.

The local fauna seems to have enjoyed it a lot ...
It will be very interesting to identify the life - especially worms and shellfish - which have settled on the bones and logs, and compare them with what we have found on the first mooring at the same depth, on a different seamount and in different waters.

We were successful with the recovery of the second mooring and we can now start on our way back to land.
Port Elizabeth (or P.E. for the locals) is at 1550 nautical miles from here (1785 miles / 2780 km). We should arrive in P.E. early on the 21. Everyone is looking forward to going back home and enjoying Christmas and New Year’s Eve with our family and friends.

Fighting hermit crabs

2011-12-13T13:58:00.001Z

Today, while exploring ‘Atlantis’ bank seafloor, we saw two hermit crabs fighting! One of them attacked the other to try to get it out of its host shell.

Hermit crabs are small marine crustaceans and are in fact anomura, not real crabs. They are soft-bodied and that is why they have to borrow a cast-off gastropod shell that they will carry, live in and that will protect them from predators.

The first one was visibly not entirely satisfied with its own shell and wanted to steal the shell of the second.

Or, maybe, they were just fighting for food (second theory circulating in the main lab) … Who knows!

Trapped on a mountain

2011-12-12T15:58:00.000Z

By Philipp Boersch-Supan, University of St Andrews and University of Oxford

Around seamounts large fishes appear to be more abundant than elsewhere – one reason why fisheries tend to focus on these features. Currently it is poorly understood what mechanisms provide the food to these seamount-residents as the open ocean is a comparably food-poor environment.

These hatchetfish are about 2 cm long and migrate around 600m vertically
every evening and every morning. On a human scale this is like walking roughly 50 km
to get food, and then 50 km back to get home. (Photo: Oddgeir Alvheim)

Phytoplankton are tiny plant-like creatures that dwell in sunlit surface waters across the world's oceans; small jellies and crustaceans graze on them and are in turn eaten by slightly bigger animals, for example inch-long hatchetfish or small squid. In fact, the risk of predation is so large near the surface that many midwater animals hide in the twilight zone many hundreds of meters below the waves during the day, and only come up to feed at night under the cover of darkness. As soon as the sun comes up they disappear into the inky deep again. This daily vertical migration is one of the defining characteristics of midwater life, and might be the largest animal migration on earth both in numbers and in terms of biomass.

As the sun comes up, midwater animals migrate into deep water.
Green indicates dense aggregations of animals, white indicates their absence.

Hiding in the deep darkness might seem a good idea when predators lurk at the surface. Around seamounts, however, the downward migration comes with added danger. Having drifted over the summit of a seamount, the midwater animals become trapped on the mountain top when they descend around sunrise. Seamount resident predators like rockfish or alfonsino are only too happy to turn these trapped animals into breakfast.

Echogram of an unnamed seamount (brown/grey)
protruding into a layer of midwater animals (blue)

Exactly how much biomass is transferred from the midwater into the stomachs of seamount fish is unknown, and in my PhD research I am trying to gain a better understanding of this process. Earlier in the blog you heard about how Lily is using sound to map the seafloor (Nov. 16th), and essentially I am using the same principle to map the distribution of midwater animals around seamounts. The difference is that the echoes from fish and invertebrates are very faint and thus much more difficult to detect. Also, inferring the type and size of animal from the echo trace is not always possible, as not all animals are equally good reflectors of sound. For example, the gas-filled swimbladder of a small fish might return a much stronger echo than the watery body of a large squid or even a jellyfish (see Clare's blog on Nov. 14th). Nonetheless, even without knowing exactly which species I am observing, I have already learned a lot about the interactions between midwater animals and seamounts.

Watch the birdie!

2011-12-11T10:32:00.003Z

We are lucky to have a professional independent photographer on board. His name is David Shale. He was a scientist previously - he has a PhD in oceanography - and decided then to concentrate on deep-sea photography. He has participated in 14 cruises as a photographer since 2006 on board U.S., Norwegian, and U.K. research vessels among others. He was involved in the MarECO project between 2006 and 2010 which was part of the Census of Marine Life 10-year effort. Before that he worked for the BBC Blue Planet television programme.

Not only is he taking beautiful photographs of animals that we sampled for media and public outreach purposes but his photos will help the scientists to recognise, identify the sample and keep an image of the animal before the preservation process.

When he talks to you about his work, you realise that he is not only interested in the aesthetic aspect of his photographs but he is passionate by the mysteries of nature revealed through them. His eyes sparkle when he tells you that they often raise more questions than they solve. For example, these two photographs make you wonder how and why these two tiny transparent shrimps - always one male and one female - become trapped in this glass sponge for their entire life...

A Japanese traditional wedding present consists of giving

one of these sponges as a symbol of longevity of marriage.

Finally, David may appear as the perfect gentleman but ... be careful, do not leave your chocolate biscuit unattended in the main lab!

Sailors' supersitions

2011-12-10T14:54:00.001Z

There are a lot of superstitions on board a ship ... and I guess they all come from times when safety at sea was not as good as nowadays and seamen really were risking their life.

First of all, and maybe the most well-known, is bringing a woman on board a ship brings you bad luck (which is obviously totally unfair). In fact women onboard a ship were supposed to distract the crew and place it in peril.

I have selected a few more (among hundreds):
- You are not supposed to say the word ‘Rabbit’ ... it is a word that brings bad luck.
- Throwing stones overboard is bad luck (because it causes ripples, which causes waves and brings storms).
- Having flowers on board is bad luck as well because flowers are used for funerals.
- Losing a hat overboard signified a long trip.

- Black cat is considered good luck on board a ship (because cats don’t like water so they want to return to port as soon as possible).
- Black travel bags are considered bad luck as well. For some reason.
- Don’t whistle as this would cause a storm at sea. (We say ‘whistling up the wind’ and it also may come from the times when ships were using steam .. a leak in high pressure will make a whistle).
- Ship’s bell should never ring itself. It is an omen of death.
- You shouldn’t leave port on a Friday. (Because Christ was crucified on a Friday.)
- In old times, drinking wine on the deck was considered to bring you bad luck because it is an insult to the gods.
- Killing an albatross or a seabird is supposed to bring you bad luck because they are thought to carry the souls of dead sailors.
- A naked woman is supposed to calm the sea (that is why most of the time figureheads are naked women).

The albatross's good-bye

2011-12-09T14:35:00.002Z

A good indicator that we are moving northward is that there are fewer and fewer albatrosses around the ship. We have probably left their favourite distribution range as we have reached the subtropical waters (seawater temperature at surface is 20°C today!).

Albatrosses are among the largest flying birds. The Wandering Albatross has the longest wingspan of any birds (almost 3 m!). They are highly efficient in the air and cover great distances with no effort. Most albatrosses range in the southern hemisphere from Antarctica to Australia, South Africa and South America. They feed on fish, squid and krill mainly.

A large majority of albatross species are recognised as threatened on the IUCN Red List. One of the main threats is commercial long-line fishing; the albatrosses are attracted by the bait and become hooked on the lines and drown.

Institutions and conservation organisations are working in cooperation with the fishing industry to try to reduce this bycatch.

Albatrosses are amazing birds. You could literally spend hours watching their flying, almost brushing against the surface of the ocean, playing with the wind, exploiting the slightest air lift...

"Alright folks!"

2011-12-08T10:48:00.001Z

I realise we haven’t met yet with Alex! Alex is the Chief Scientist of the expedition. He is Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Oxford and works in the zoology department. He is the founder of the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (see links) and he is involved in many deep-sea conservation projects in close cooperation with different U.N. bodies.
He has participated in many cruises in the past. This is his third one as a chief scientist.

There is a lot of pressure in organising all of the scientific work of the research cruise. He has to make quick decisions on what instrument has to be deployed, taking into account the weather forecasts and the sometimes competing interests of different scientists. He has to make sure that the scientific work is done efficiently and properly and that we make the most of our allocated ship time.
He is also the link between the science party and the crew on board and confers with the master several times per day.

We cannot talk about Alex without citing Michelle and Philipp. Michelle is a post doctoral fellow and Philipp is doing his PhD thesis at the University of Oxford under the supervision of Alex. They have been working together for several years and I think that the three of them form a great team! Organising such a cruise requires an amazing amount of work and I am not lying by saying that Alex could not have done that without Michelle and Philipp.

Oh... and by the way, Alex is very good at keeping a whole bunch of people busy 24/7 during 45 days! and rumour has it he never sleeps ..................

Studying Gastropods – Unweaving all those winds and spirals

2011-12-07T13:35:00.018Z

By Chong CHEN, PhD Student, University of Oxford

Have you ever wandered across a beach or shore, picking up seashells for admiration as you went? Well, that’s how my interests in Mollusca, the second largest phylum of the entire animal kingdom (containing seashells, octopuses, squids, etc.), began. Although I am interested in all groups within Mollusca, my primary interest lies in the class Gastropoda (coiled univalves or “snails”).
The more I learnt about gastropods, the more I am intrigued by them. At first, it was the amazing shapes of Sthenorytis pernobilis (noble wentletrap) and the fantastic patterns / colours of Conus gloriamaris (glory-of-the-sea cone). Then, it was the great diversity of ecological roles and adaptations shown by gastropods – some examples are the parasitic ovulids living under coral polyps, the tremendous dispersal ability of the wandering triton, Ranella olearium, and the iron-plated armour of the scaly-foot gastropod. My unstoppable fascination for gastropods led me to start an academic career to find out more about them, and to this expedition.
Gastropods are often an important group in deep-sea ecosystems, such as the extremely widespread predators Buccinus sp. and Fusitriton sp.; and various types of snails (e.g., Alviniconcha sp.) found in very high densities in hydrothermal vents. It is truly exciting to find out what roles they play on the Southwest Indian Ridge.
Through this expedition, I am hoping to find answers to some questions I have in mind regarding gastropods (and molluscs general) in these seamounts, such as: What species are living on these seamounts? Are they endemic (specific to that region of the world)? What factors influence their distribution? What habitats do different species prefer? How are the populations on different seamounts linked? …. And many others!
I have seen some motivating hints to answering these questions in the past month, and the hydrothermal vents expedition has also been more than enthralling. I hope the rest of this cruise continues to be exciting and thrilling, and I am already looking forward to work on the materials collected when I get back to Oxford!

Fusitriton magellanicus (Ranellidae),
a widespread carnivorous species.

Otukaia sp. (Calliostomatidae), a grazer,
probably associated with live corals.

A surprising encounter

2011-12-06T14:13:00.003Z

Last night, we saw another ship next to ours … At first sight, it gives you a strange feeling realising that we are not the only human beings in this area of the world’s oceans, more than 900 miles / 1,450 km from land. As soon as we got close enough we figured out that it was a large trawler … and that they were actually fishing the area of ‘Sapmer’ seamount - the seamount we are starting to explore now– the 4th one on our itinerary plan. We watched them trawling up and down using a mid-water trawl and they fished all night long. The vessel was registered in Japan and must have sailed from a great distance (7,500 miles / 12,000 km) emphasizing the global nature of fishing on the high seas. This morning we saw them haul their net and then they headed to the south west and we can easily imagine that they are going to fish the other seamounts of the area –the ones we have just left– the ones we have just started to understand and whose mysteries have not yet been totally discovered.

A typical day in Leighton’s life

2011-12-05T13:29:00.001Z

Leighton is one of those people on board who is always on watch. He is one of the technicians working for NERC. His tasks are to take care of the whole computer network on board and make sure that every ship measuring instrument is working properly; from the communication system to the bathymetric swath (the instrument that
measures the depth of the ocean) and the two keel-ADCPs (that measure the speed of the currents).

Leighton's corner

When he wakes up, he first checks his maintenance planning (a list of things or instruments on board that need to be checked on that day) and sorts that out.

He then shows up in the main lab ... and there, scientists, technicians, the master, the chief scientist, seamen, jump him with problems. "Leighton my computer doesn’t work. Leighton, the SBP120 is off. Leighton internet is slow today!"
Before noon he will probably go to the top of the mast to fix the antenna, produce maps of the seafloor and check the met system that records different meteorological parameters (temperature of the sea water, speed of the wind, air temperature, etc).

While the ROV is in the water in the afternoon he will check that the USBL system (that records the location of the robot) is acquiring good data. Yes, one very important thing Leighton does is to make sure that the science GPS is working so that we can then locate our collection data for further studies.
He also makes sure that every single datum is recorded and saved properly to be sure that we will have access to all this information while working on the cruise results later on.

The one thing Leighton hasn’t done is get a haircut before leaving ... and now he is complaining all the time!

Work had to stop for a while …

2011-12-04T11:14:00.002Z

… as we have been encountering bad sea conditions since yesterday. We had Force 9 on the Beaufort scale of wind force (see blog post 17 Nov) yesterday afternoon and the surface of the sea was covered with spindrifts.

The ship instrument at the top of the mast (34m above the waterline) registered gusts of wind up to 60.7 knots (110 km/h).

31.1 is the current wind speed in knots and 60.7 is
the maximum value recorded yesterday.
202.5 is the heading of the ship at this moment.

Moving around in the ship becomes difficult, we have to keep ‘one hand for the ship’ (which means do not walk with both hands carrying something, but keep one hand free to hold in case of strong wave). It gives you the feeling of being drunk - without a drop of alcohol! - while trying to walk in a straight line.
Climbing the stairs is a tricky exercise not to mention trying to sleep while rolling from one side of your bed to the other!

Every single object on board has to be properly stored and secured to prevent any dangerous falls.
Cupboard doors and drawers are equipped with a lock which prevents them from opening inadvertently.

Hopefully the weather is improving and the wind is dying down gently … we should be able to resume work in the next few hours.

Middle of what?

2011-12-03T16:04:00.002Z

It’s time to pause for breath and give a brief overview of the work that is being done on board.

We have been exploring ‘Middle of What’ seamount for three days now. This is a smaller than ‘Coral’, but larger than Melville bank, which we visited last month. Strong currents at depth have made exploration more difficult using our underwater vehicles (ROV Kiel6000 and Hybis).
‘Middle of What’ seamount is crossed by a fault line and reveals quite steep slopes, cliffs and cone features that are possibly underwater volcanoes. Its summit is at 1,000m depth. Unfortunately, most of the more accessible area on the main seamount has been flattened by trawls and is mostly devoid of complex framework. But, in some areas, we have seen amazing coral reefs and coral gardens (some bamboo corals were up to 3m height!), orange lobsters and different fish species including many small energetic sharks.

We have completed several explorations of the site and Clare was, as usual, scrutinizing the screen whilst the robot is lowered through the water column looking for jellyfish (see blog post of 14 Nov). These dives allow us to explore the deep-sea habitats by watching the live images on the main lab screens. We are doing several transects to cover the largest area possible and sample the seabed fauna.

Everyone is concentrated on the samples: Michelle is examining corals (see blog post 22 Nov); Tim, Peter and their colleagues are sorting the sediments that have been cored (25 Nov); David is identifying the pycnogonids (sea spiders) that we find on a coral (2 Dec); and so on …
Each animal and each sample is preserved in alcohol or formalin to allow taxonomic analysis later on.

The whole night of bathymetric survey (see blog post of 16 Nov) was well worth it as new maps of the relief of the seabed have been compiled.

One of the cone feature (height 200m)
which supports an abundant and diverse fauna.

Beautiful sea spiders!

2011-12-02T15:20:00.004Z

By David Staples, Marine Sciences, Museum Victoria, Australia


© David Shale

Sea spiders, or pycnogonids as they are correctly known, are a most unconventional group of marine arthropods numbering about 1,300 species worldwide. They are particularly unusual because there is invariably an exception for every diagnostic character and aspect of their life cycle. For example they include forms with 4, 10 and 12 legs, leg spans that range from a few millimeters to 74 cm and species that are blind or have one two, four or eight eyes! The males (usually) carry eggs on special appendages whilst in two families males have never been recorded carrying eggs. Some species brood their young and others parasitize an invertebrate host. In some parts of the world they commonly form part of the intertidal (shoreline) fauna yet they are also found at abyssal depths.

The sea spider’s body is typically no thicker than its legs and often look more like a collection of drinking straws than anything else, none more so than members of the large deep-sea genus Colossendeis. Colossendeis species are the giants of the pycnogonid world with leg spans commonly in the range of 30-50 cm.
Distribution records of Colossendeis are often widely spaced and without any apparent connection. In common with many of their smaller counterparts they are very capable ‘swimmers’ in the sense that by rapidly treading water they can lift themselves off the sea floor and into the water column. Assisted only by the occasional kicking action they can then be carried over long distances by the currents.
The deep sea provides a unique environment. The temperature at depth is relatively constant, so too are salinity levels and of course light never reaches these depths so it matters little to a deep-sea specimen whether it is in the tropics or southern Ocean. Considering the slow moving deep-sea currents that meander around the globe perhaps it should not be surprising that species recorded from the tropical central Atlantic should also be found in the temperate waters of southern Australia and possibly southern Indian Ocean.

© David Shale

Gentlemen on board!

2011-12-01T14:12:00.001Z

Today, let’s meet James, Russ, Veit, Leighton, Dave, Neil and John! They are technicians for the Natural Environment Research Council and are on board to take care of every scientific instrument during this cruise. They are in charge of their deployment and maintenance; they ensure the good functioning of the equipment and smooth data acquisition. They look after the ship measuring instruments, the computer system and are real gentlemen!
Without them, no scientific work at sea is possible … at all!

Yo-yo-ing with an oceanographic instrument

2011-11-30T13:48:00.002Z

Today, we are back on our cruise track. We arrived in the vicinity of 'Middle of What' seamount this morning and started with a bit of physical oceanography!

You can divide oceanography - ocean sciences - into three parts: the biological oceanography (the part that studies life in the oceans, the patterns of distribution and abundance of species such as the variability of algae bloom, etc.), the chemical oceanography (that surveys how much CO2 is dissolved in the oceans, iron, traces, etc.) and the physical oceanography (the part that explores currents, the formation of water masses and their characteristics, warming of the global ocean, etc.).

The ocean is a 3D fluid environment where movement can be sidewards AND up & down. This is not straightforward for us human beings who live most of our day-to-day life (with the exception of scuba diving and flying in an aeroplane) across a 2D static surface.

Our first activity at 'Middle of What' is a CTD yo-yo deployment. The CTD is the instrument that measures conductivity (salinity), temperature and depth (pressure). And ‘yo-yo deployment’ means that we are going to put it deep down, close to the seabed, and back near the surface and deep down again and so on … for 13 hours! Another instrument (called an ADCP) which is able to measure the speed of the currents is tied to the CTD frame.

Thanks to these accurate instruments we will collect a large amount of data. Jane, the physical oceanographer on board, will then be able to differentiate the water masses (layers of water with their own characteristics), assess the variability of the water column (structure of the layers), she will be able to compile the whole water column current velocities and see what tidal effects there are around the seamount, such as internal waves. Tides can have a strong impact on the small biota (fauna and flora) both at the sea surface and at the seabed.

The men (and woman) in charge

2011-11-29T11:38:00.001Z

There are 22 crew members on board the RRS James Cook on this cruise. The most important thing you have to know is that THEY are running the ship. We are their guests.

The crew includes the four people working in the galley - Chris, Wally, Graham and Roger - who prepare excellent food for us 3 times a day. Then we have Anthony who is responsible for everything related to administration on board, ordering stores and interactions with local authorities in every port. He is the shopkeeper as well (the shop is a cluttered room where everyone on board can buy T-Shirts, chocolate, toothpaste, and sweets, and did I mention chocolate, three times a week).

At the bridge we have the Chief Officer (Richard), the Second Officer (Michael) and the 3rd Officer (Amy – only female crew member and on her first cruise on board the RRS James Cook!) who are sailing the ship.

Everything that functions 24/7 on board such as the engines, air conditioning, water, electricity, is provided thanks to a very dedicated engineer team – Bob, Chris, Ian, Innes, James and David.

Mick and Andy are responsible for loading of the equipment and everything that has to be moved from one part of the ship to another, for example.

Then we have Dave, Ian, Kenneth, Peter and Will who are providing support regarding the deployment and recovery of every scientific instrument.

And last but not least, we have Bill, the captain of the RRS James Cook, in charge of everyone and everything happening on board this vessel.

The crew usually spend a total of 6 months a year at sea generally for periods of 2 months maximum but it can go up to 10-12 weeks.

They have had a diverse range of experience before joining this research vessel … and their image of scientists is kind of clichéd like "they all look like Jesus Christ and wear sandals with socks" (which is not always wrong) but on the other hand they like the scientists' enthusiasm and love to learn new things every time new experiments are conducted on board. It is nice for them to have a different group of people of various ages on each cruise (PhD students to senior scientists).

And it makes it interesting for them when we make new discoveries on board their ship!

Bill adds that "It is even nicer if they laugh at my jokes." And, he admits that the crew are always amused when the scientists get seasick.

Quote of the day

2011-11-28T12:22:00.001Z

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

André Gide

[1869-1951]

Have you heard about hydrothermal vents?

2011-11-27T12:26:00.002Z

Research on seamounts will pause as another science project will divert our expedition cruise for the next 3 days. It will focus on hydrothermal vents.

Hydrothermal vents are another special feature of the deep-ocean. They mostly occur on mid-ocean ridges (long, narrow, natural elevations on the floor of the ocean where oceanic crust is formed). The one Leigh and Jon are going to explore - and sample for the very first time - is located on the Southwest Indian Ocean Ridge at 2800m depth.

Chimneys, formed on hydrothermal vent fields, release hot fluid filled with chemicals from the inside of the Earth. Hydrothermal vents support very specific fauna. Communities that developed in these very deep sea habitats use the chemical energy of the vent fluid to live and thrive.

The hydrothermal vent area will be investigated through several ROV dives in order to take HD images of the whole structure and characterize the composition of the vent fauna.

An additional blog is in place for this other research project for the next few days; you will find more info about what is going on on board the RRS James Cook regarding hydrothermal vents here:
http://www.thesearethevoyages.net/jc67/index.html

ROV screens during the first dive on the vent field

Hydrothermal vent; ROV images

Far reaching human impact

2011-11-26T12:34:00.001Z

Today is our last day at Melville bank. So what have we discovered?

Melville bank painted a very different picture to that of Coral seamount. We found that incredibly this area, despite being thousands of miles out into the ocean, has been heavily exploited by the fishing industry. Unlike Coral seamount, a large area of Melville bank has clearly been fished. We found most places covered only by dead coral rubble. We could see what damage deep-sea trawling can do to the seabed. It literally destroys everything. However, even on such a heavily exploited seamount there were areas that were rich with life. This was because the terrain was so rugged that mobile fishing gear could not be used.

Throughout our exploration of Melville bank we have come across evidence of human impact. We saw many lost lobster pots, drifting pieces of fishing long lines, broken trawl wires and even rubbish (mainly bottles). All these pieces of equipment were floating around on the seabed as ghosts.
It was always impressive and frightening to see this gear appearing on the ROV screens in the devastated landscape of the seamount and caused us a great deal of difficulty in completing our research dives.

Sky at sunrise 5:15 am (ship time)

Digging in the seabed for very very small animals

2011-11-25T11:50:00.003Z

We have 6 people on board whose main scientific interest lies in sediments, or more exactly, in what animals you can find in the sediments.
Sediment is matter that has been deposited by some natural process on the seafloor. It can consist of mud, sand, gravels and pebbles and it may harbour high biodiversity. Its inhabitants range in size from a few millimetres to 45 micrometres (=0.045 millimetres) and are mainly tiny worms, crustaceans (like shrimps) and molluscs (like mussels).

There are different ways to collect sediments. Usually you core sample with a transparent plastic tube that you drive into the seabed which allows you to see the different layers.
In the vicinity of seamounts, the seabed is either too hard or sediments are too coarse to stay in the coring tube and we have had some unfortunate attempts.

We are now using the robot HYBIS and its big jaw to grab a pile of sediments which makes our 6 people – Natalia, Adam, Tim, Peter, Margaret and Lucy - very happy!

In these areas sediments contain organic debris such as dead corals, shell fragments and plankton remains. Sediments on the seabed might not look as attractive as other marine habitats but if you look closer …. closer …. closer …… you can see amazing forms of life!

Polychaete (0.5 mm wide) © P. Lamont

Crustacean (2 mm) © P. Lamont

Surprisingly colourful

2011-11-24T13:57:00.001Z

Brisingid (sea star)

Before the cruise and my first look at ROV images, I thought that the deep-sea world would range from light grey to dark grey.

I was wrong! From the bright red urchins to pale green, yellow, orange, red and purple corals, this place is full of different colours!
We saw small bright pink crabs, pink lobsters, snow-white and orange sea stars and … fish in disguise!

Centriscops humerosus

We met this funny looking fish during our ROV dives at Melville. It is a banded yellowfish ... real name Centriscops humerosus.
It is from the same group of fish as sea horses. Any resemblance?

Centriscops humerosus

We can find it at this range of latitude all around the southern hemisphere (Southeast Atlantic: South Africa; Southwest Atlantic: Argentina. Southwest pacific: Australia and New Zealand). Its depth range is usually 450 – 700m.

Octocorals

Unknown octocoral with brittlestar

Anthomastus sp. (coral)

Lepidion sp.

The escape of the lobster or how it is not always possible to steal the secrets from the deep

2011-11-23T15:06:00.002Z

During our first ROV dive at Melville bank this morning, there was a suspenseful moment or two when the robot tried to capture a very cunning 20cm-long lobster.
After some unsuccessful trials, we managed to get it into the collecting net but as we were trying to put the net into the bio box, it jumped out of the net and landed on the ROV.
Then we tried our best to have it fall into the box by creating some currents with the thrusters in its direction.
And … it worked. It was in the box!
All we had to do was to put the net with the sediments on the lobster and close the box.
But things are not so straightforward at 900m depth. And our very brave lobster, gathering its strength, jumped and swam out of the 30cm deep box!
We will never know what species it was! For now it will remain a mystery of the deep ...

Coral and critters

2011-11-22T15:10:00.001Z

By Michelle Taylor, Post-doctoral Researcher, University of Oxford

The words ‘coral reef’ conjure up mental images of tropical sandy beaches, cocktails and colourful fish. For me however they conjure up images of long oceanic voyages (sea sickness tablets), large pieces of deep-sea sampling equipment and all manner of colourful animals (Nemo doesn’t have a patch on these guys…). You see, corals are not confined to the shallow warm sections of this planet; they in fact occur in every Ocean, even the very coldest, and have been found thousands of metres down where the water is anything but tropical. Deep-sea corals exist by filter feeding from the water around them. As such, they need to be in areas of strong currents. They also need a solid base to grow on making seamounts ideal locations.

There are just a handful of hard skeleton deep-sea coral species that grow into large reef frameworks. When this does happen these reefs are a sight to behold; even the small areas seen so far on this expedition have been home to a bewildering array of animals. We have seen baby-pink lobsters (whose abodes are immediately filled by another once one is sampled), the tiniest yellow sea spiders, intense-red anemones, flame orange fish and electric purple octocorals (who are unusually always home to the same big snake-armed brittlestar species).

In general, the deep sea of the Indian Ocean is very understudied, certainly one of the least studied regions for deep-sea corals globally, making discoveries to be made on this expedition very important and very interesting indeed.

ROV images; Coral seamount;
Isididae sp. - unknown, next to some bottlebrush octocoral

ROV images; Coral seamount;
Isididae sp. - unknown bamboo coral with Galatheid crab
and brittlestars

Steaming for Melville

2011-11-21T13:36:00.001Z

We left Coral seamount yesterday evening after the mooring recovery and we have just arrived at the second site: Melville bank.

We are going to stay a few days in this area to explore the site, mainly conducting the same surveys as on Coral seamount (CTD transect, ROV and other robot dives, coring, bathymetric survey, etc.). We'll do our best to collect as much information as possible about this site. It will be very interesting to compare our results knowing that this seamount is in warmer waters than Coral seamount. Seawater temperature at the surface is now around 17°C (that’s a 7 degree rise overnight)!

Hunting for a package of whale bones

2011-11-20T19:00:00.003Z

Two years ago during the previous cruise, two moorings, each carrying a package of whale bones and a package of mango wood logs, were placed on the seabed at Coral seamount and Atlantis bank. They are attached to a vertical line with floats at one end and 150kg of ballast at the other end.

The idea is to study the life that will settle on these new substrates and identify what organisms (worms) will grow while the bacteria that colonize the bones and wood during their decomposition recreate a similar chemical environment to those found at hydrothermal vents and cold seeps (both special deep-sea habitats).
We will hopefully be able to analyse the variety and distribution of the worms associated with these environmental conditions.

Slow growing and slow recovery are typical features of the deep-sea communities. If we learn more about this process through experiments like this, it will help us to understand how marine ecosystems are connected and determine the best strategies for protecting these deep-sea habitats.

We spotted the first mooring four days ago during one of the ROV dives at Coral seamount and today we dived again at the same location to try and recover them at 743m depth.

And we were successful!

James Cook vs mysteries of the deep (1-0)

2011-11-19T10:35:00.001Z

We have been around Coral seamount for a week now. It’s time to have a look at what's been done already. We have had an impressive number of events: 1 wire test, 1 test of acoustic interferences between instruments, 4 ROV Kiel6000 dives (see Remotely Operated Vehicle blog post), 3 SHRIMP dives, 2 HYBIS dives, 8 CTD (see CTD and Anni’s microbes), 1 ring net deployment (see Clare and the Jellyfish), 1 microprofiler (mixing; see Overnight work), 6 boxcorer deployments and 7 megacorer deployments to collect sediments (see upcoming blog posts...), 1 multibeam survey (see How to map the seafloor), a lot of seawater collected and filtered, a lot of organisms and samples labelled and preserved. We have still not unlocked all the mysteries of Coral seamount though. Over the last few days the weather has frustrated our progress and we are yet to see what lives on the top of the seamount. So tonight and tomorrow we will attempt to tow SHRIMP, our towed camera system, up the upper slopes and onto the summit where we have seen a strange hole in the top of the seamount with the echosounders..........

We've been happy to see many fur seals, 2 Sperm whales, hundreds of albatrosses, white-chinned petrels, cape petrels, terns, prions and other seabirds.

Air temperature (daytime) range: 7 and 13°C.
Seawater temperature: around 10°C at the surface, 4°C at the seafloor
Area covered (latitude, longitude): [41°20’:41°28’] South, [42°50’:42°57’] East

Anni's microbes

2011-11-18T15:54:00.001Z

The weather calmed down during the night and work could resume. We did a CTD transect above the Coral seamounts area. CTD stands for Conductivity Temperature Depth. It goes along with a Rosette of 24 Niskin bottles, each one of those can be closed at a chosen depth.

It allows you to bring back on board bottles of seawater collected all the way from the bottom to the surface at any depths you choose.
The instrument itself gives you the salinity (conductivity) and the temperature at each depth. Nowadays other parameters have been added as, for example, oxygen.
With all this information you can distinguish different layers (water masses) and get a pretty good idea of the origin of the seawater at this depth.

Anni, a student from Oxford University, is very interested in microbes. Seawater is full of microbes quite different than the ones we have on land. Anni filtered the seawater from the Niskin bottles to see what species of microbes she will find after a DNA analysis. Did you know that we can find up to 1 million bacteria per millilitre in seawater?!

FORCE 8 up to force 9 today!

2011-11-17T10:32:00.002Z

Today we are encountering a rather rough sea. Work had to stop. It is impossible to put any measuring instruments in the water ... the winch cable would have to bear too much pressure and the instrument might bang on the hull.
The Beaufort scale of wind force is an empirical measure that relates wind speed to observed conditions at sea or land.
This scale was devised by Sir Francis Beaufort in the year 1806 for use in vessels of the Royal Navy. It was adapted in 1874 and in 1939 the International Meteorological Organisation (now WMO) agreed to the use of a sea criterion by which the wind force was judged from the appearance of the sea surface.

Force 8 on the Beaufort scale corresponds to a gale, winds of 34-40 knots (62-74 km/h) and moderately high waves with breaking crests forming spindrift, well-marked steaks of foam blown along in the wind direction and considerable airborne spray.

Seasickness pills are quite fashionable today!

How to map the seafloor?

2011-11-16T16:37:00.003Z

As you can imagine, bathymetry (the topography of the bottom of the sea) is not an easy thing to measure.
Satellites get a pretty good image of the surface of the ocean - they produce amazingly accurate images of the surface of the planet - but they cannot see through water, below the waves.

Lily, a student from Oxford University, is using the data of the Multibeam Swath (an instrument attached to the keel of the ship which sends many beams of sound in the water column and gets back the echoes after they bounce off the seafloor) to compile a map of the seafloor in the seamount’s area.

In the old times, measurements of water depth were made with a sounding machine. It consisted of piano wires with a plumb bomb at the end deployed until the weight touched the seabed and then the length of the wire was measured. It was a very long process; the ship had to stop!

Around World War II, the echosounder was invented and it enabled us to measure the depth of the seabed while the ship was moving. These echosounders had a single sound beam only, and would measure the depth along the ship’s track. Multibeam echosounders are essentially doing the same thing but with a fan of sound beams that survey a whole swathe of seabed, sometimes kilometres to the left and right of the ship’s track.

Once this data has been collected, it has to be processed to get rid of errors, otherwise you may end up with 100m tall spires which are impressive but not actually there! The bathymetry from this trip will be compared with previous maps to determine whether there may have been submarine landslides or underwater eruptions in the past two years.

Coral seamount; 2009 data collected aboard the R/V Fridtjof Nansen, hopefully we will fill some of the holes!

Overnight work!

2011-11-15T14:12:00.001Z

A lot of work was carried out last night. The samples and biological specimens brought back on board the ship by the ROV had to be identified, measured, labeled, recorded and put in formalin or ethanol to be preserved. Pictures of each of them were taken. Some samples were saved for DNA analysis. It’s a huge amount of work!

In the meantime, Jane put an instrument in the water that measures turbulence, temperature, salinity and pressure (depth). It started at 10:30 pm and went on until midday today measuring these parameters between the surface and 250m in repeated vertical profiles. We can learn a lot about mixing and physical processes in the water column above the seamount this way.

Clare and the jellyfish

2011-11-14T10:49:00.001Z

Today, let's talk with Clare.

Clare is a PhD student from St. Andrew's University in Scotland. This expedition is her first research cruise.
She is interested in jellyfish and more generally in pelagic ecology.
Jellyfish are members of the gelatinous zooplankton (animals that live in the open water and are at the mercy of the currents).

So why do we care about jellyfish? They have important impacts on human activities: negatively affecting important tourist beaches (with their sometimes painful and even deadly stings!), clogging fishermens' nets, and competing with commercially-important fishes for food. But they also have often overlooked positive impacts – providing shelter for young fish in the open ocean and apparently make a tasty satay in Asian cookery!

Clare is hoping to use acoustics echoes to detect them and other zooplankton in the water column, which means we send a sound through the water and measure the echo we get back at the ship after its reflection on the animal. Also we will be putting out nets in the ocean to collect organisms that she will identify and analyse later. Who knows what we will find!

Live from the deep!

2011-11-13T09:30:00.000Z

I must admit that I was impressed yesterday, watching the live ROV images in the lab, looking at these small red shrimps, crabs, colorful corals, sponges, and fish swimming in front of the robot.
The ROV Kiel6000 stayed for 8 hours in the water exploring the seabed at 1300m depth. It collected more than 100 organisms and brought them back on board the ship for scientists to study them.

The ROV is piloted from a fitted out container by the IFM-GEOMAR technicians, one or two scientists directing the sampling. The rest of us are in the main lab, watching screens relaying the ROV images, counting, identifying, taking notes etc.

Processing of the samples, once on board, went on into the early hours of this morning.
Today we are going on with robot dives and instrument deployments to explore the area ...

Arrival on Coral seamount and first ROV dive!

2011-11-12T03:25:00.000Z

Today we are arriving at the first site: the Coral seamount! It is located at 41°25 South and 41°55 East.
Everybody is very excited, eager to see to the first ROV dive of the cruise and get our first images from the deep!
The way samples are going to be registered, marked with the bar code, dealt to the different group of scientists, preserved in ethanol of formalin and stored required a lot of organization. This first dive will be a challenge!

We are going to stay in the vicinity of Coral seamount for the next six days and have different operations going on: CTD deployment (instrument used to measure the properties of the water from surface to seabed like temperature and salinity), Kiel6000 ROV dives, SHRIMP dives (another type of robot but just with cameras – cannot take samples), HYBIS dives (yet another type of robot – this one can take a big amount of sediment from the seabed), coring operation (collects a pile of sediments from the seabed) and acoustics for looking at animals in the water column.

Hopefully tomorrow we will have some nice pictures of monsters of the deep!

What is life on board a ship like?

2011-11-11T14:43:00.000Z

Life on board a ship is a unique experience. First of all, there is no weekend; every single day is like the previous one and like the following one in terms of rhythm.
On board the RRS James Cook, breakfast is from 7:20 to 8:30, then lunch from 11:20 to 12:30 and dinner from 17:30 to 18:30. There are two cooks on board.

7290 meals (including breakfast) will be served during this expedition, using not less than 500 kg of potatoes, 10 kg of aubergines …

On board a ship, work is generally scheduled on watches. The crew runs a 4-hour watch, which means that they work for example from 8 am to 12 am and then 8 pm to 12 pm. This system allows the ship to run 24/24. Work never stops on board.
The scientists organize their work in watches too, in order to take the most from the ship time allocated. On this cruise, we are working from 4 am to 4 pm or 4 pm to 4 am, a 12-hour watch divided in 6 hours on stand-by (working freely at different tasks) and 6 hours on duty (in charge of surveying parameters, sorting samples, etc).

Remotely Operated Vehicle

2011-11-10T14:00:00.000Z

What is a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV)? It is one of the instruments we are going to use to explore the seamounts. A ROV is a kind of robot you can control directly from the ship through a big electric cable (umbilical). It has two mechanical arms; it can take samples (sediments and living material) and stores them into boxes until it reaches the surface again. It takes high resolution images from the seabed and allows the scientists to decide in real time which zone they want to sample, which animals they want to collect for further analysis (e.g. genetics). It can also take water from the deep and bring it back on board to analyse its chemical properties.

Because seamounts are deep-sea habitats, it wouldn’t be possible to study them carefully without a means to go deep down in the vicinity of the seabed, and the ROV is a perfect instrument for that.
The ROV we will be using during this cruise is the ROV KIEL 6000 from IFM-GEOMAR. Six technicians from this institution are on board to operate and take good care of the ROV.

Wandering albatross / copyright A Spadone

Steaming full speed for the first site!

2011-11-09T12:46:00.001Z

The first seamount we are going to explore is the Coral Seamount. The RRS James Cook will reach the site on Saturday. In the meantime, scientists and technicians on board are getting prepared, determining the number of samples they would like to get, the way they want to label them. And that is very important to simplify the work afterwards and make good use of this amazing amount of data this expedition is going to collect. A bar coding system will be tested.

A good number of meetings are taking place in the conference room of the ship as well. Maps of the seabed of the five different sites (Coral, Melville, Middle of What, Sapmer and Atlantis seamounts) are studied carefully to determine where we want to have the transects done, which parts of the seamount are the most promising.

Departure from Cape Town!

2011-11-08T12:26:00.000Z

The RRS James Cook left at 2pm yesterday. All participants and the crew were already on board for at least 24 hours and were busy unpacking, storing, securing every single item that will be used during the expedition.
Problem n°1: We had no internet connection until this morning and it is still very weak.
The weather was very nice yesterday and permitted the tricky operation of the calibration of the echosounders (downward looking instrument used to detect fish, plankton and even jellyfish). There are 5 echosounders on the James Cook and they are placed at different locations on the keel.
Clare, Philipp and the technicians put a small metal ball (calibration sphere) about 25 m under the ship, they turned on the echosounders and recorded the echoes from the ball.
During this operation, the ship was stopped a few miles away from Cape Town and many fur seals were hanging around.
Problem n°2: We guess that one of the seals played with the calibration sphere for a while - delaying the work for 2-3 hours!

Art and Science!

2011-11-03T14:49:00.000Z

Artist Mariele Neudecker is collaborating with Alex Rogers to create an artwork about the underwater mountains in the Indian Ocean from this expedition through the art and science organisation Invisible Dust.

For info : http://invisibledust.com/

D-Day minus 10 – A good mix between excitement and the stress of last minute preparations!

2011-10-28T17:39:00.000+01:00

In 10 days, the 20 participants and the crew of the JC066/067 research cruise are going to leave Cape Town on board the RRS James Cook for a 45-day expedition in the southwest Indian Ocean. We are going to see the harbor diminishing in size, diminishing … and eventually vanishing, and after that, it will be us, the ship and the sea for the following 6-7 weeks.

But let’s come back to here for a while. Most of us are still at home, being very busy, either to prepare the cruise or to complete other types of work. Time goes fast during this pre-cruise period. And I am sure I can talk for every participant, not to mention the people involved in the organization!