Information
Comments
We are sampling in some very dramatic country. One trawl last night was taken from the lip of a very steep drop-off, going from 130 m depth to more than 400 m in a very short distance. Although the trawl was on the sea-bed very briefly, it came up with a good haul of giant sponges and fish, indicating an area of very high production. As we move into some of the deeper sites we are beginning to see the first of the giant crustaceans which are characteristic of the Antarctic. Overnight we caught amphipods that were 5 cm long and isopods that were more than 8 cm long, these groups include the sand-hoppers and sea-slaters which around the coast of Australia are usually less than a centimetre long. We have now used 24% of the ship-time allocated to CEAMARC and have completed 20% of the sampling stations. We are about on schedule for this stage of the voyage, allowing for the extra time used at the first few stations where we tested the full range of sampling equipment before we settled on a standard combination to be used at most stations. Regards, Martin and Sarah.
Map
A map showing Australia and Antarctica. The map shows the journey of one voyage that has occured in the season, with each route highlighted in a distinct colour.