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Another trawl completed yesterday afternoon, and the species count now stands at 567! We’re now conducting our own long-line experiments (albeit without hooks or bait) to determine what impact fishing activity has on the benthic communities here. Thick fog rolled in last night during our first long-line deployment, which has hampered our efforts, but with the morning and the rising sun, the fog has dissipated. The first deployment was in a muddy environment, which was not ideal for the experiment, but was a good test of all the equipment. During the foggy evening, the long-line with camera set-up was lowered to the sea floor in six locations (without actually dragging it anywhere) and left sitting there for a few minutes at a time, to record the local environment. Most of the time the image was swamped by krill after two minutes, and the unit was raised, the ship allowed to drift, before being lowered once more. The marine science crew will do this a few more times before deploying the entire long-line setup later today.
Regards, Doug, Aaron & Margaret
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.