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BODC Cruise Metadata Report for RRS Discovery cruise DY108 (DY109)

Introduction

This report collates information from the BODC cruise inventory and oceanographic databases. It presents

Cruise Inventory Information

Long name RRS Discovery cruise DY108 (DY109)
Short name DY108 (DY109)
Objectives and Narrative The cruise discussed in this document is a combination of three expeditions with largely related aims:
the CLASS programme, (Climate Linked Atlantic Sector Science) NERC's Long-Term Single Sector programme for marine research. The project aims to increase our understanding of how the ocean will evolve under a changing climate and increased human exploitation, with the objective to support sustainable marine management. More specifically, the work during DY108-109 consisted of the re-survey of the Darwin Mounds Marine Protected Area, The Darwin Mounds are small (~75m across, max 5 m high) cold-water coral mounds that were protected from bottom contact fisheries in 2003. The mounds were initially discovered in 1998, and further surveys took place in 2000 and 2011. The aim of the expedition was to identify and quantify any potential changes to the habitats and benthic communities in the area over the last 20 years.
On our way out to the Darwin Mounds, we also aimed to pick up a lander from the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), and deploy a replacement system. This work is also part of the CLASS programme, and fits into the long-term oceanographic monitoring of the so-called "Ellet Line". Unfortunately neither the pick-up or deployment were successful.
BioCAM: This cruise demonstrated technology currently being developed under the NERC OCEANIDS program (BioCam NE/P020887/1: 2017~2021) to generate wide area (~100ha) 3D visual reconstructions (imagery and seafloor topography) from which the distribution of live coral can be determined. The survey was performed using the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Autosub6000 equipped with the 3D visual mapping instrument "SeaXerocks 4" (NE/P020887/1). This takes downward looking stereo imagery and laser bathymetry of the seafloor from an altitude of ~6m. Two full coverage mosaics of ~25ha were collected during this expedition.
BLT-Recipes project: BLT Recipes seeks to test an emergent new paradigm of ocean mixing, whereby deep-ocean upwelling is primarily driven by bottom boundary layer turbulence instead of by breaking internal waves in the ocean interior - as has been held over the last four decades. The deep-ocean basin in which the experiment will be conducted is the Rockall Trough (RT), in the Northeast Atlantic. The sea-going activities for this project are mainly planned from summer 2020 onwards, but during DY108-109 two 24h yoyo CTD deployments were carried out to provide important background information for cruise planning.
Ship RRS Discovery
Departure Port Southampton, United Kingdom
Departure Date 2019-09-06
Arrival Port Southampton, United Kingdom
Arrival Date 2019-10-02
Principal Scientist(s) Blair Thornton (University of Southampton School of Civil Engineering and the Environment), Veerle A Huvenne (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton)
Responsible Organisation National Oceanography Centre, Southampton
Associated Project(s) Climate-Linked Atlantic Sector Science (CLASS); BioCam; Boundarly Layer Turbulence & Abyssal Recipes
IHB Sea Areas Visited North East Atlantic Ocean (limit 40W)
Marsden Squares Visited 145;3/145;4/181;1/181;3/182;1/182;3
Work Area Description Northern Rockall Trough (Darwin Mounds MPA). Rockall margin.
Unable to lookup cruise bounds at this time
Work Area Bounding Polygon
Southern Limit unknown
Northern Limit unknown
Western Limit unknown
Eastern Limit unknown

Cruise Inventory Datasets

Physical oceanography  
CTD stations Quantity: number of profiles = 6
Description: CTD  
CTD stations Quantity: number of profiles = 42
Description: CTD  
Geology and geophysics  
Bottom photography Quantity: number of dives = 4
Description: Autosub6000 missions for photography  
Bottom photography Quantity: number of dives = 13
Description: HyBIS video tows  
Core - soft bottom Quantity: number of cores = 21
Description: Boxcores sieved for macrofauna analysis  
Geophysical measurements made at depth Quantity: number of dives = 2
Description: Autosub6000 missions for sidescan sonar mapping  
Multi-beam echosounding Quantity: survey square kilometres = 1650
Description: EM122 multibeam data  
Single-beam echosounding Quantity: track kilometres = 250
Description: Sub-bottom profiler data  

Cruise Inventory Mooring/Buoy Operations

Latitude Longitude Data type Description
57° 6' N 9° 20' W Current profiler (eg ADCP) Seabed lander with upward-looking ADCP. Inspected on seafloor, was damaged, left in place
59° 48' N 7° 21' W Other biological/fisheries measurement Short marker mooring, 3.5m tall, steel plate, rope, floatation sphere. Recovered from seabed to study biological colonisation (was deployed by science party for this reason in 2011)
59° 51' N 7° 3' W Other biological/fisheries measurement Short marker mooring, 4.5m tall, steel plate, rope, floatation sphere. Recovered from seabed to study biological colonisation (was deployed by science party for this reason in 2011)
59° 51' N 7° 2' W Other physical oceanographic measurements Short mooring array, ~80m tall, with 2 microcat CTDs, sediment trap, and downward-looking ADCP

Summary of BODC Data Holdings for the Cruise

National Oceanographic Database

Summary

# Series Instrument Description Parameters
2 Moored CTD Date and time
Electrical conductivity of the water column
Moored instrument depth
Reference numbers
Salinity of the water column
Temperature of the water column
1 Multi-beam echosounder Bathymetry and Elevation
Horizontal spatial co-ordinates
Reference numbers

Note: Parameter terms are taken from the BODC Parameter Discovery Vocabulary XML (SKOS)

Full List

BODC Reference Instrument Description Date/Time Location  
2027806 Multi-beam echosounder 2019-09-21 03:29Z Click for more
2201209 Moored CTD 2019-09-23 08:15Z to 2020-10-23 07:00Z 59° 51' N, 7° 3' W Click for more
2201210 Moored CTD 2019-09-23 08:17Z to 2020-10-23 07:02Z 59° 51' N, 7° 3' W Click for more

Project Database

No data currently held for this cruise in the BODC Project Database

References

Track Charts

Track Chart

Reports

Cruise Report