Saturday 4th March 2023 The sixth and final week of research cruise M187. On 27.02 we had our last station at the most western point of our cruise transect (5 °W, 26.7 °S), in the highly oligotrophic waters of the South Atlantic subtropical gyre. These seawaters are strongly depleted in bioavailable nitrogen, which limits phytoplankton […]

6th weekly report (19.02.2023 – 25.02.2023) Saturday 25th February 2023 The fifth week of the research expedition M187: we have been making progress with the transect we are conducting outwards into the South Atlantic subtropical gyre. We plan a total of 11 stations along this section, starting from where we finished the two filament studies […]

4th weekly report (12.02.2023 – 18.02.2023) Saturday 18th February 2023 In our fourth week we continued our study of the second filament located west of Lüderitz, conducting daily stations to sample the water column and then using the remainder of the day and night for intensive underway sampling of surface seawaters. We are studying the […]

3rd weekly report (05.02.2023 – 11.02.2023) Saturday 11th February 2023 The start of the week began in Walvis Bay port as we waited for a replacement crew member to arrive. The scientists used the time to organize their labs and catch up with paperwork. We also had science seminars each day where initial results from […]

+++ deutsche Version siehe unten+++ 2nd weekly report (29.01.2023 – 04.02.2023) Monday 6th February 2023 The second week of the research cruise M187 started with continued observation of the first targeted filament located around 24–25 °S. This filament has been a major and persistent feature in satellite images over the last few weeks, extending more […]

The CTD (short for Conductivity-Temperature-Depth) is a central instrument for most oceanic research. It infers the salinity from conductivity and measures, in addition to temperature and depth, oxygen, florescence and much more! Furthermore, it has 24 big bottles (10 L) attached to it, allowing for water collection from specific depths, which then in turn can […]

1st weekly report (25.01.2023 – 28.01.2023) Sunday 29th January 2023 On Wednesday 25th January we left the port of Walvis Bay in Namibia at 20:00 local time. This is the beginning of a 38-day cruise in the South East Atlantic, where we will study the physics, chemistry and biology of upwelled filaments. Using a wide […]

Thursday 26th January 2023 After an evening departure from Walvis Bay yesterday and a first ‘test’ station not far from the coast, we are now heading south, hunting for so-called filaments to track. The overarching aim of our research cruise is to investigate these features: elongated finger-shaped structures of cold seawater that penetrate outwards from […]