The Southampton-based Royal Research Ship (RRS) James Cook started the New Year in the North Atlantic with an international team of scientists on board.
The ship left Southampton on 20 December and will spend 42 days on an expedition to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (GA13 FRidge) where a group of researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Liverpool will work to measure the widescale dispersion of hotspots of iron and other key trace elements that are injected into the deep ocean from hot hydrothermal vents along the volcanic Ridge.
Professor Maeve Lohan is Southampton’s Project Principal Investigator on the expedition. She’s joined by Professor Rachel Mills, NERC Research Fellow Dr Amber Annett, postdoctoral researcher Alastair Lough, PhD researchers Wenhao Wang and Dakota Gibbs and postgraduate research student Sarah Breimann, together with researchers from the across the UK, USA, France, China and Malaysia who will also share the experience of spending the holiday period at sea.
“It is very hard to be away from home especially at Christmas as this is the time of year for family,” says Professor Lohan. “However, at sea the scientists and crew become one big family who will sit down like everyone else for a very tasty Christmas dinner. As it’s Christmas fairly early in the cruise, it is a good chance for everyone to get know each other well before the hard work starts.”
Updates from Professor Mills and her colleagues aboard the James Cook will be available via the ‘Exploring our Oceans’ MOOC blog throughout the expedition.
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