First living ciliate found in over 4000 m depth

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, we arrived at the first sampling station in the territorial waters of the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean Sea. During 60 hours of team work, we took water and sediment samples across 4000 m depth using three different systems: Water samples were taken from multiple water depths with […]

Algae and Sand

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, for the moment, let us focus on the water surface rather than the deep sea: We found stretches of brown algae across the ocean surface (Image 1). Free-floating brown algae like Sargassum are distributed worldwide in warm seas. In summer 2015 in the Caribbean, it was reported as […]

Dry run for the ‘MUC’ sample processing

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, there are regular presentations given by our scientists on the RV Meteor (Image 1). The first presentation was given by the PhD student Alexandra Schönle from Cologne on her research topic “Protists in the Deep Sea”: How do protists (single-celled eukaryotes, which store DNA in a nucleus) survive […]

Fine-tuning and preliminary experiments

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, now we are already more than 48 hours at the Caribbean Sea. The laboratories are all set up (Image 1). Some of our scientists had some issues to adapt to the strong waves. Thanks to the doctor on board most of us feel better and we started to […]

Boarding on the RV Meteor

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, with a slight drizzle and a dense cover of clouds, the boarding on the RV Meteor took place this morning in the Port of Bahia las Minas, Panama. Our team is healthy and had the first meals. After a short briefing by the captain, the routine safety instructions […]

Welcome to our blog on M139

Dear interested reader, colleagues, friends and families, we are pleased to welcome you to our blog “Deep-Sea Microbial Food Webs and Volcanism in the Atlantic Ocean”. Our interdisciplinary and international team from Cologne, Vienna, Kiel and Oldenburg is currently on its way to Panama. On the 8th of July, there will be the departure of […]