Expedition SO268 took place between February 17th and May 27th, 2019 and led from Manzanillo (Mexico) to the Clarion Clipperion Fracture Zone (CCFZ) the North East Pacific Ocean and ended at Vancouver (Canada).
The objective of the first leg was the investigation of the status quo conditions (abiotic and biotic) in the CCFZ, an area proposed for mining of manganese nodules. The main objective during the second leg was the monitoring of the first trials of a so-called nodule collector under in-situ conditions, to be able to assess and possible effects on the entire ecosystem. To evaluate the effect of the expected sediment cloud, a sensor array was deployed on the sea floor (see images). Due to technical problems, the collector could not be deployed. Instead a dredge experiment was conducted to simulate the sediment cloud.
ROV KIEL 6000 was one of the main tools and accomplished 13 (leg 1) and 19 (leg 2) dives, respectively, in depths of around 4000 m. Main tasks were exploartion, mapping, documentation, sampling of sediments and fauna and facilitating several experiments and last but not least the deployment of numerous instruments (profilers, benthic chambers, sedimenttraps) and sensors (ADCPs, camera, current meters etc). In addition, the following instruments were integrated and could be tested: LIBS (Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) (LZH Hannover), Multibeam (GEOMAR Kiel), Optical Communication (AWI Bremerhaven, HYDROMEA).
Images unless otherwise noted: ROV-Team GEOMAR; for enquiries on usage of high resolution material please contact Pressestelle GEOMAR oder Dr. Friedrich Abegg.
Note: Images are chronologically sorted.
