Aims of the voyage

This voyage brings together chemistry and biology to investigate the history of deep-water corals living across the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. The Southern Ocean is an important part of the global climate system, but our knowledge of its history is limited by a scarcity of well−dated records. The skeletons of deep−sea corals can record information on past climate, and are found both living, and as fossils, in Antarctic waters.

During the cruise we aim to visualize and collect deep-water corals across the Drake Passage and Scotia Sea (including the Argentinean and Antarctic Continental Shelves). The data and samples that we collect will be used to achieve two main goals:

1 - We will determine the location, habitats and species diversity of deep-water corals on shelves, seamounts and ridges within the Drake Passage and Scotia Sea. To do this we will use a combination of ocean floor maps, photographic images taken using the WHOI towed camera system (TowCam, Right) and collections made using Blake Trawls and dredges.

2 - We will make geochemical analyses on the skeletons of fossil corals skeletons to reconstruct the history of radiocarbon within the water column, allowing us to address the role of the Southern Ocean in climate change over tens of thousand of years.

Onboard ship there will also be a team of geophysicists from the University of Texas at Austin led by Ian Dalziel and Larry Lawver. This science project involves exploring when the South American and Antarctic Plates split, creating the Drake Passage. This tectonic event is thought to have had a dramatic impact on ocean circulation and global climate as it allowed the initiation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current that still flows around the Southern Ocean today. Coming soon - Institute for Geophysics cruise website.