How it all began

By Gerd Schriever Many different mineral resources can be found on the deep sea floor. Beside manganese nodules, manganese crusts, massive sulphides and rare earth elements are of commercial interest. The first manganese nodules were found in 1872 during the English “Challenger” expedition in the Atlantic Ocean but were quickly forgotten. During the late 1960s/early […]

My piece of cake

By Dr. Clara Rodrigues and Dr. Patricia Esquete Garrote, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal The Box-corer is one of the stars of this DISCOL revisited cruise. This stainless steel sampling box has been used since the 1980s to determine the fauna composition at the abyssal floor. The surface area of the box is a quarter of […]

SO242 – Here we are again

RV SONNE in Guayaquil (Ecuador). Photo: Jens Greinert

‘Here we are again‘ was a phrase that I heard several times yesterday when we boarded RV SONNE in Guayaquil (Ecuador) in the morning after being picked up by the agent exactly on time. We are about to start with SONNE 242-1, the first of two legs to the DISCOL area during which we will […]

SO239: The crusher

At 4300 m depth the manipulator of ROV KIEL 6000 places a Mn nodule into the crusher. Photo: ROV KIEL 6000, GEOMAR

Mining Mn-nodules is certainly a debatable topic. Whether it will happen depends on metal market prices, governmental and industry interests, environmental & societal acceptance but also on technological feasibility. In this respect, one of the various unknows are the mechanical properties of Mn-nodules, which are of great importance because they determine how the nodules can […]

SO239: Pacific, 27 March 2015, RV SONNE: A Mosaic of the seafloor

One of 44.000 seafloor images taken with the AUV ABYSS.

44,000 images: That is the result of one single dive with the camera-equipped Autonomous Underwater Vehicle called “Abyss”. During the current Cruise of FS Sonne, six of those camera dives are planned, but, time permitting, there will hopefully be even more. The brand new high-resolution camera and strong LED lighting setup in “Abyss” allow acquiring […]