RRS Discovery D122
Cruise summary report
| Cruise Info. | |
| Ship name (ship code) | RRS Discovery (74E3) |
| Cruise identifier | D122 |
| Cruise period | 1981-06-30 — 1981-07-27 |
| Status | Completed |
| Port of departure | Ponta Delgada, Portugal |
| Port of return | Barry, United Kingdom |
| Purpose | Research |
| Objectives | The first part of this cruise was a continuation of the work carried out on Discovery Cruises 114, 119, 120 and 121 in studying the physical oceanography of the front southwest of the Azores. Cruise 122 marked the final phase of these investigations and required the recovery of two full depth current meter moorings set on Cruise 114 in November 1980. Following this work the array of moorings set near 33N 22W on Cruise 114 and the subject of further investigation on Cruise 117 were to be recovered and some CTD stations worked to within a few meters of the sea bed.
A narrow channel through the Azores-Gibraltar fracture zone was visited with a view to investigating the characteristics of water flowing through this channel and two near bottom current meter moorings were set in the channel for recovery in the summer of 1982. Finally a Sea Soar section was to be worked northwards along 15 30'W and 45N and thence to the continental slope. En route a tide gauge was recovered for IOS Bidston. |
| Chief scientist | W John Gould (Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Wormley Laboratory) |
| Cruise report |  (0.86 MB) |
| Ocean/sea areas | |
| General | North East Atlantic Ocean (limit 40W) |
| Specific | Azores area |
| Track charts |  |
| Measurements | |
| Physical oceanography | |
| Surface measurements underway (T,S) | |
| Bathythermograph | Quantity: number of profiles = 17 |
| Water bottle stations | Description: made for batfish calibrations S surface only |
| CTD stations | Quantity: number of stations = 13 |
| Subsurface temperature and salinity measurements | Quantity: track kilometres = 2592.8 |
| Current meters | Quantity: number of deployments = 11 Description: 250 days |
| Currents measured from ship drift | |
| Sea level (inc. bot. press., inverted echosounder) | Quantity: activity duration in days = 250 Description: 27 records |
| Meteorology | |
| Routine standard measurements | |
| Geology and geophysics | |
| Multi-beam echosounding |
