RRS James Cook JC010_3 (JC10)
Cruise summary report
| Cruise Info. | |||||||||
| Ship name (ship code) | RRS James Cook (740H) | ||||||||
| Cruise identifier | JC010_3 (JC10) | ||||||||
| Cruise period | 2007-06-22 — 2007-07-07 | ||||||||
| Status | Completed | ||||||||
| Port of departure | Lisbon, Portugal | ||||||||
| Port of return | Southampton, United Kingdom | ||||||||
| Purpose | Research | ||||||||
| Objectives | The major objective of RRS James Cook 10 was to increase our understanding of how seafloor environmental variables affect the biodiversity, structure, function and dynamics of faunal communities in two specific 'biological hotspot' environments, mud volcanoes and submarine canyons, on the NE Atlantic continental slope. The cruise was jointly supported by OCEANS 2025 (Theme 5) and the EU Hotspot Environment Research on the Margins of European Seas (HERMES) project.
The cruise comprises three legs, of which this is the third. The objective of this cruise was to undertake a mapping and sampling transect of the Whittard Canyon, in order to make a preliminary assessment of the similarities and differences in biological habitat between this canyon and the less active and less energetic Portuguese canyons. A series of ROV dives would be made to address the following questions: 1) How do the ecosystems vary down canyon, between canyons where the environmental drivers may be different, and between the canyons and the adjacent slopes? 2) What is the small scale variability in seabed faunas related to local topography e.g. boulders, ledges and local changes in environmental parameters e.g. current strength or water mass? 3) Are cold water corals present in the canyons and under what environmental conditions? 4) Is the higher engergy environment of the Whittard Canyon, compared with the Nazare and Setubal canyons, reflected on the biological communities that exist there? | ||||||||
| Chief scientist | Douglas G Masson (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) | ||||||||
| Project | HERMES | ||||||||
| Coordinating body | NOCS | ||||||||
| Cruise report |  (4.15 MB) | ||||||||
| Ocean/sea areas | |||||||||
| General | Bay of Biscay | ||||||||
| Specific | Portuguese Canyons, Whittard Canyon | ||||||||
| Track charts | (0.20 MB) | ||||||||
| Measurements | |||||||||
| Physical oceanography | |||||||||
| CTD stations | Quantity: number of stations = 2 Description: CTD | ||||||||
| Geology and geophysics | |||||||||
| Dredge | Quantity: number of hauls = 2 Description: Agassiz trawls | ||||||||
| Core - soft bottom | Quantity: number of cores = 50 Description: Push core | ||||||||
| Core - soft bottom | Quantity: number of cores = 7 Description: Megacores for sampling of macrofauna | ||||||||
| In-situ seafloor measurement/sampling | Quantity: number of surveys = 9 Description: ISIS ROV dives, swath bathymetry | ||||||||
| Data held at BODC | Get data | ||||||||
| Series/Profiles | |||||||||
| 1 Bottle station | Reference numbers Particulate total and organic nitrogen concentrations in the water column Vertical spatial coordinates Quality control flags Particulate total and organic carbon concentrations in the water column Reference numbers Particulate total and organic nitrogen concentrations in the water column Vertical spatial coordinates Quality control flags Particulate total and organic carbon concentrations in the water column
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| Discrete samples | |||||||||
| 1 Stand-alone pumps | |||||||||
| 13 | Nitrogen concentrations in suspended particulate material Carbon concentrations in sediment |
