RRS Discovery D188
Cruise summary report
| Cruise Info. | |
| Ship name (ship code) | RRS Discovery (74E3) |
| Cruise identifier | D188 |
| Cruise period | 1990-01-24 — 1990-02-24 |
| Status | Completed |
| Port of departure | Barry, United Kingdom |
| Port of return | Funchal, Portugal |
| Purpose | Research |
| Objectives | The major objectives of the cruise were to investigate facies distributions, and sedimentation patterns and processes on the lower continental slope and around the Canary Islands using surface towed long-range sidescan sonar (GLORIA), deep-towed medium range sidescan sonar, 7 kHz profiler and fluxgate magentometer (TOBI), airgun and 3.5kHz seismic profilers, and various types of sediment core. The main area of interest was a large and complex sediment slide, the Saharan Slide, which extends from the upper continental slope off Spanish Sahara to the Madeira Abyssal Plain. It was planned that the major features of the sediment would be mapped using GLORIA, and that the GLORIA mosaic would then be used to choose areas of interest for investigation using TOBI. All TOBI work was to be navigated using the Oceano bottom transponder system. Because the cruise was also the first trial of the re-built TOBI system, some time at the beginning of the cruise was also planned for TOBI test runs. |
| Chief scientist | Douglas G Masson (Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory) |
| Cruise report |  (0.64 MB) |
| Ocean/sea areas | |
| General | North East Atlantic Ocean (limit 40W) |
| Specific | Between Madeira and the Canary Islands |
| Track charts |  |
| Measurements | |
| Geology and geophysics | |
| Single-beam echosounding | Quantity: track kilometres = 5500 Description: 10 kHz bathymetry |
| Long/short range side scan sonar | Quantity: survey square kilometres = 2650 Description: TOBI medium range deep towed side-scan sonar (30kHz), 8 days of survey |
| Long/short range side scan sonar | Quantity: activity duration in days = 11 Description: 168000sq.km, GLORIA long range side-scan sonar (6.5kHz) |
| Long/short range side scan sonar | Quantity: track kilometres = 400 Description: deep towed 7kHz profile data collected simultaneously with side scan |
| Single channel seismic reflection | Quantity: track kilometres = 1300 Description: Airgun single channel seismic reflection |
| Single channel seismic reflection | Quantity: track kilometres = 5500 Description: 3.5kHz high-resolution profiler records |
| Gravity measurements | Quantity: track kilometres = 6100 Description: shipborne gravity |
