For the RRS Discovery this is her 341st cruise of a long and prolific life. For some on the ship this is a first experience of carrying out research at sea but for others this is old hat and have had many years of seagoing experience. By the morning of 6th July all of the scientists have finally arrived and the ship can leave the King George V docks in Glasgow. As the gangway is pulled back onboard we wave goodbye to those people who had come along to help out with the mammoth effort of unpacking and mobilising for the forthcoming cruise.
The past couple of days have been very hectic. All of the equipment that had been packed weeks ago has to be unpacked and homes found for it. After exploding hundreds of crates and boxes worth of kit onto the ship we have now managed to secure everything down so that nothing breaks if the weather is very rough. There have been several trips to B&Q and Sainsbury’s for everything from general everyday hardware, such as tape and screws, to Tupperware boxes and popcorn. It is amazing how many common household items are vital for cutting edge research.
Scientists from several European institutions are onboard to participate in the cruise. During the next five weeks we will all be working closely together to ensure the smooth running of scientific operations. Here is a quick introduction to the 2009 Porcupine Abyssal Plain (PAP) scientists.
Richard Sanders (Principal Scientific Officer)
Research Area: Biological Oceanographer
Work on D341: Coordinating all science during the cruise and liaising with crew.
John Allen
Research Area: Upper ocean mesoscale processes and physical oceanography data collection.
Work on D341: Deployment of towed instrument platform called SeaSoar, data processing of CTD, Acoustic Doppler Current Pr ofiler, and turbulence probe.
Terence Edwards
Research Area: Instrumentation and moorings.
Work on D341: Engineering for instruments deployed overboard including CTD, moorings and SAPs.
Thanos Gkritzalis
Research Area: Sensors engineer
Work on D341: Deployment of sensors to gain real time measurements of dissolved organic matter and zooplankton sampler. Setup of sediment traps.
Ross Holland
Research Area: Marine mi crobiology
Work on D341: Identification of microbi al communities using flow cytometry
Chris Marsay
Research Area: Trace metal chemistry
Work on D341: PELAGRA and In situ pump (SAPS) deployments for the study of iron and other trace metals in particulate material.
Charlotte Marcinko
Research Area: Surface ocean bioluminescence produced by single celled organisms called Dinoflagellates.
Work on D341: Conducting measurements of surface biolum inescence using the Glowtracka instrument, filtration of water for DNA extraction. Processing and calibration of physical oceanography measurements.
Adrian Martin
Research Area: Ecological modelling
Work on D341: Processing and calibration of physical oceanography measurements and deployment of the turbulence probe.