Log Post: Ridge Jumping

The members of the second student cruise met the small boat Atreyu at the University of Hawaii’s Snug Harbor facility on a gray Easter afternoon.

Log Post: Research Team Seeks Greater Understanding of Ocean’s Bacterial Diversity

Scientists from the University of Rhode Island working aboard the R/V Falkor’s first shakedown cruise are collecting ocean water samples from the North Atlantic seas between Greenland and Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Gathered using a platform called the Conductivity, Temperature and Depth Rosette (CTD), the water samples are rife with the ocean’s smallest, but most abundant … Continued

Log Post: Filtering the ocean for answers… (one litre at a time)

I started my PhD this year at University of Western Australia (UWA), working with Ryan Lowe who is also currently on Falkor.  I am collecting data to investigate the nutrient dynamics and productivity of Scott Reef, and how this relates to the physical oceanographic processes over the system.  Modelling has shown that open ocean water … Continued

Log Post: Virus Alert

I have a cold. Yuk. I suspect I am not alone and given that there are about 50 of us all living close in one another’s company, I likely won’t be the last.  But right now I feel pretty grotty. Still, so long as you wipe down your screens after reading this, hopefully you won’t … Continued

Log Post: Surprise: Young Lava!

One of the joys of exploration is getting surprised. And boy, were we surprised when we found a lava flow on the seafloor that looks like it could have erupted yesterday! It is right in the area where we found big plumes and the most intense chemical anomalies during the last CTD tow-yo on what we … Continued

Log Post: Silent Running

Today has been a quiet day but we’ve been making steady progress.  The first CTD cast started at 4am and the last of the day will finish just before midnight. Tomorrow we will start again at 04h00.  Working to that pattern we have managed to measure water column properties from top to bottom at three … Continued

A yellow torpedo shaped autonomous underwater vehicle is dropped into a blue ocean with a launch and recovery system.

Log Post: The Strategy for Finding Hydrothermal Vents

Traducción al español disponible a continuación Written by Julie Huber and Dave Butterfield Given bad weather to the north at the Kane Fracture Zone, we decided to test our strategy for finding active hydrothermal vents at the Puy de Folles vent field. Previous work by French and Russian colleagues at this site focused on inactive … Continued

Log Post: Back On Course

After successfully avoiding the typhoon, we begin the trip back to port to complete the rest of our loading. The return leg is a good opportunity to further test the on-board instruments whilst near the relative shelter of Guam. We escalate from simpler surface tests to deep dives, then on to sampling. This ensures we … Continued