RV Cefas Endeavour 07/15
Cruise plan
| Cruise Info. | |
| Ship name (ship code) | RV Cefas Endeavour (74E9) |
| Cruise identifier | 07/15 |
| Cruise period | 2015-04-16 — 2015-05-01 |
| Status | Completed |
| Port of departure | Lowestoft, United Kingdom |
| Port of return | Lowestoft, United Kingdom |
| Purpose | Research |
| Objectives | Aims
1. To assess a number of biodiversity indicators for detecting a change in benthic biological communities from fishing impacts in offshore muddy sediments to detect the effects of fishing impacts on benthic infaunal communities. 2. To further develop operational Indicators for Seafloor Integrity. 3. To undertake camera trials of the Sub C 1 Cam Alpha + camera system. Plan Equipment mobbing and sampling demonstrations for chlorophyll and nutrient sampling will be completed on the 15th April and all personnel will be on board for 11pm on the evening of the 15th. Depart from Lowestoft on the morning tide of the 16th April 2015 and transit north past the Dowsing SmartBuoy where a chlorophyll sample will be collected on route. A 24 hour period on route to the Fladen Grounds will be allocated to the trialling of a new camera system by the MIST team. The new camera system will be tested under various conditions / habitats. This 24 hour period will be run by a member of the MIST team with input from JM and PW. A multibeam (MBES) calibration site will be located near the Fladen Grounds and multiple calibration lines will be acquired before arriving at the Fladen Grounds survey site. MBES of the 6 survey boxes each 250m2 in size will commence prior to trawling to confirm that the selected sites are suitable for trawling. Following the collection of acoustic data, twenty Day grabs (10 for infaunal analysis and 10 for sediment analysis), three 2m beam trawl deployments (approx 5 minutes in length) and three underwater camera deployments will be carried out in each survey box. In addition, the SPI camera will deployed during this study at both control and impact sites. On completion of T0 sampling, trawling impact will be carried out using paired 4m beam trawls on the three treatment boxes. To ensure that each of the three treatment boxes are sufficiently impacted (~100% coverage of each of the survey boxes) they will each be trawled twice. On completion of the trawling impact, T1 sampling will commence as described above for T0 including MBES, grab sampling, video and 2m beam trawls. Contingency are options are currently being sort from Marine Scotland, JNCC and NE. |
| Chief scientist | Joanna M Murray (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science Lowestoft Laboratory) |
| Cruise programme |  (0.24 MB) |
| Ocean/sea areas | |
| General | North Sea |
| Specific | Fladen Grounds, northern North Sea. |
