Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT)

Project overview

Diagram summarising the AMT research ©

The Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT) project is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded consortium project. The AMT is coordinated by Andy Rees (AMT Principal Investigator) and Miss Dawn Ashby (AMT Project Officer) at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML).

The aim of the AMT project is to study the factors determining the ecological and biogeochemical variability in the planktonic ecosystems of the tropical and temperate Atlantic Ocean and its links to atmospheric processes.

To date AMT consists of three phases

• Phase one (1995-2000) consisted of 12 cruises providing the most coherent set of repeated biogeochemical observations made over ocean basin scales, and a 5 year time series of data of bacterial, phytoplankton, and zooplankton community structure and activity.
• Phase two (2003-2005) consisted of six research cruises, which sampled further into the centre of the North and South Atlantic Ocean and also along the north west coast of Africa where upwelled nutrient rich water is known to provide a significant source of climatically important gases.
• Phase three (2007-2012) is funded under Theme 10 (Sustained Observations) of the Oceans 2025 strategic marine science programme. A further five research cruises are planned to continue the core data set of AMT measurements and so develop an extended time series (1995-2011) of spatial extensive and internally consistent observations on the structure and biogeochemical properties of planktonic ecosystems in the Atlantic Ocean.

The third phase of AMT involves investigators, researchers and students from six partner UK institutions (Universities of Newcastle, Plymouth, Warwick and East Anglia, together with Southampton Oceanography Centre and Plymouth Marine Laboratory) as well as other national and international collaborations. The cruises funded under Oceans 2025 have been successfully completed with AMT21 participants on board RRS Discovery arriving into Punta Arenas, Chile in November 2011.

More details of the AMT cruise programme and participants can be found on the BODC cruise programme pages and on the official web site.

Related AMT pages at BODC