December 2020

An IMAS PhD student and first time voyager gives an honest and up front account of her first three weeks on board RV Investigator.

A nomadic scientist’s reflections of home, from the remote Southern Ocean.

We successfully completed our occupation of the subantarctic SOLACE site late on Sunday 20 December and are currently headed south-west towards a diatom-dominated polar site to commence our southern occupation.

Micronekton are free-swimming pelagic animals around 2-20 cm in size and make up an important trophic link in the marine food web.

Researchers on board RV Investigator had a very exciting catch on the SOLACE voyage in the subantarctic Southern Ocean! Pyrosomes of the species Pyrosoma atlanticum landed in our last Rectangular Midwater Trawl that we towed through the upper 200 m of the water column.

In the last few days there has been little time to post any blogs on the SOLACE www site as most groups on board RV Investigator have been busy processing samples from midwater nets, bio-optics, deep water cameras, zooplankton nets, sediment traps, particle interceptors, and/or running experiments.

A test deployment of our profiling lagrangian acoustic optical system (PLAOS), has revealed some of the treasures which lurk below the ocean’s surface.

The centrepiece of the SOLACE voyage – a suite of seven repeat 3.5 day sampling cycles – commenced on 9 December with the deployment of an upper ocean mooring.

Transporting carbon: Why micronekton are important Bree WoodsPhD Student The deep ocean is the largest habitat on earth and despite harsh environmental conditions, is full of life. The animals that live here are adapted to high pressure, low temperatures, and little-to-no sunlight. Such animals, which are collectively named micronekton, include fishes, squids and hard-bodied organisms