Information
Comments
We should arrive at the first mooring site and the start of the I9 transect this evening. The satellite images of the sea ice are looking pretty promising, so we are optimistic we can go ahead with the recovery. The moorings were deployed two years ago, from the Aurora Australis, as part of a joint US – Australian experiment. The five moorings have been measuring the speed and direction of the ocean currents and the temperature and salinity of the water. This is the first time long-term current measurements have been made in this part of the ocean. Each mooring consists of a long string of wire (varying from 500 m long on the shortest one, to 4000 m on the longest) anchored to the sea floor, with instruments placed at various depths along the wire. Glass and foam floats provide the buoyancy to keep the mooring wire vertical. We recover the mooring by sending a special coded sound pulse to an acoustic release mechanism; once released, the floats rise to the surface. These instruments record the data internally, so we need to get them back to get the data.
Regards, Steve and Barbara
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.