Vulnerable Deep-Sea Communities Expedition Blog
A brittle star made its home on a small coral. Photo Amelia Connell/NIWA
Today we’re sampling on Whakatane Seamount. Previous research has shown that this is probably not an actively venting seamount, but we’re ever optimistic that we might find an unknown hydrothermal vent site here. We’re sampling two locations at each of our four sample depths on this seamount,... More
Amazingly calm sampling conditions. Photo Amelia Connell
Today we’ve been at sea for one week. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long, it still feels like it’s day three or four. It’s also rather unbelievable how calm the weather has been, I know I keep mentioning it but when you are expecting offshore wind and swells, the absence of them is very nice.
We have... More
The view from the ship towards land. Photo Amelia Connell
We are in the eastern Bay of Plenty in view of Matakana, with lovely, calm weather. It is quite novel being in sight of land. I’m used to leaving on a ship and seeing nothing but sea, sky and birds for three weeks.
We’re sampling one of the... More
Sorting through the beam trawl catch. Photo Amelia Connell/NIWA
I was pleasantly surprised when I woke today, that the weather had improved and we have calm seas and blue skies again. This makes working on deck a much nicer experience.
With the scientists working in two 12 hour shifts, the ship samples 24 hours a day. The work we’re doing isn’t affected by... More
The view out of the window this morning, whitecaps and wind. Photo Amelia Connell
We woke today to the ship rolling around a bit. The last few days it’s been like a mill pond out here, but it picked up over night and today we’ve had 35 knot winds and a 2-3m swell – this mightn’t sound like much, but it’s enough to start making you hold on to things when moving around the... More
A 3D reconstruction of Tangaroa Seamount. Image NIWA.
Today we’re still sampling on Tangaroa seamount, doing the second of two depth transects. We want to see if there are similarities in seafoor communities between different parts of the seamount, so the first went down the South West flank and today we’re sampling the North East flank.
From watching the video... More
Scientists sorting the catch from Tangaroa Seamount, in foreground large yellowish sulphur rock. Photo Amelia Connell/NIWA
Today we woke to another amazing day, sun shining, very little wind and calm seas. So the voyage leader made the decision to do the ocean research equivalent of ‘making hay while the sun shines’ and sample the most offshore (exposed) sample sites now, while... More
The multicorer, full of mud, back from a successful deployment. Photo Amelia Connell/NIWA
We’re multi-coring – collecting tubes of sticky mud from the ocean floor at different depths to analyse what’s down there.
We have been making our way down a slope transect starting at 700m, then sampling at 1000, 1200 and lastly 1500m depths. I came on shift today to... More
Departing Auckland. Photo Amelia Connell
We’re off! We left the wharf on Saturday at 1020h, and as we headed out of Auckland harbour towards our first sampling station in the Bay of Plenty, we quickly got to work.
While sailing we have been setting the laboratory up and tying things down. When at sea everything must be tied down, otherwise it will shift during the trip as... More
RV Tangaroa at sea on a lovely calm day. Photo Amelia Connell
This is the ship that will be my home for the next three weeks. It’s been about 5 years since I last went to sea on her so it will be interesting to see if anything has changed, and whether I’ll get seasick or not.
Here are some facts and figures about RV Tangaroa taken from... More
