RRS Discovery D186
Cruise summary report
| Cruise Info. | |
| Ship name (ship code) | RRS Discovery (74E3) |
| Cruise identifier | D186 |
| Cruise period | 1989-09-21 — 1989-10-16 |
| Status | Completed |
| Port of departure | Funchal, Portugal |
| Port of return | Lisbon, Portugal |
| Purpose | Research |
| Objectives | Discovery Cruise 186 was planned to study benthic processes in submarine canyons and on the continental slope and abyssal plains off the Iberian Peninsula.
The overall aim was to compare sedimentary environments from canyons and adjacent slope and abyssal plain areas off Western Portugal with respect to the structure of their biological communities and the relationship between these communities and the microbial, geotechnical and geochemical properties of the sediments. The cruise itself was one of the most successful that the senior scientists have participated in. All of the gear worked well almost continuously and all the the seabed transponder arrays were extremely successful. We had good weather throughout the cruise, and the Master, ship's officers and crew provided an outstandingly efficient service. The cruise was divided into two legs. Leg one was from Funchal, Madeira to Lisbon, Portugal, during which we sampled three abyssal plains, and leg two was from Lisbon to Lisbon during which we intensively sampled the canyons off Lisbon and the adjacent abyssal plain area. The major pieces of equipment used during the cruise were the spade box corer (divided and undivided), the multicorer, the OTSB trawl, the Agassiz trawl, the seabed cameras, the seabed transponder array, the precision echosounder and the 3.5 kHz profiler. There were no major problems with any of this equipment. |
| Chief scientist | P Meadows (Institute of Oceanographic Sciences Deacon Laboratory) |
| Cruise report |  (0.91 MB) |
| Ocean/sea areas | |
| General | North East Atlantic Ocean (limit 40W) |
| Specific | Lisbon and Setubal Canyons |