Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, we completed all our research on the ship, packed our instruments and arrived safely in Mindelo. The islands of Cape Verde are immersed in clouds. Right now, we are sitting outside on the deck watching the harbour’s scenery. After our last lunch on the RV Meteor, our last […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, the marine food web is complex and the techniques to explore its properties can be very challenging. The central players in the food web are plankton – Ancient Greek for “wandering” – which are the aquatic organisms that inhabit the pelagial of the ocean. They are extremely diverse […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, you may ask why we did not report on storms up to now. It’s simple, there are none. With the help of two weathermen on board in collaboration with the Deutscher Wetterdienst, we can bypass them. They give the weather consultation each day for the captain of the […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, we are still moving through the Atlantic Ocean, sampling seafloor sediments and different water bodies in up to 5100 m depth. We are interested in all forms of life, many range in size between 0.0000001 m for microbes and 1 m for the mahi-mahi fish. Our main interests are the […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, let’s take a deep breath now. Imagine, you are swimming in the ocean and, suddenly, your body is sinking, sinking and sinking. Imagine, you are sinking for hours and days. You reach the seafloor, where your body dissociates into a nutritious cloud of carbon. Eventually, this carbon is […]

Dear interested reader, family, colleagues and friends, we are the geologists (“The Kardashians of science” ~ Dr. Sheldon Cooper) on board during this Meteor expedition in the Atlantic Ocean. May you heard already that oceanic crust is built along the mid-ocean ridges – the longest volcanic mountain chain on our planet. Over time, the newly […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, safety is one of the most important requirements for our research cruise with the RV Meteor. It needs the expertise of the crew and strict rules for all people on board. In addition, all of us participate in exercises to be prepared in the case of emergency. There […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, after days of travelling and lab work, we arrived at our sampling station in the Atlantic Ocean (Image 1-4). Our schedule is meticulously prepaired, there is not much time for reports. But we want to let you know, that we are fine and excited about the next discoveries […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, we are still working with the samples of the first station in the Caribbean Sea and expect our arrival at the next station in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday night. Whenever we have a low and there is a need for motivation, we cast a quick look at […]

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, as mentioned in our last blog, we took water samples across 4000 m depth using the CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) – rosette sampler at our first station in the Caribbean Sea. Here, we are interested in the distribution of viruses, bacteria and protists (unicellular organisms) in the depth. The […]