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Centre for Geobiology

Day 18 - 12 July

The wind has dropped and we are again able to set the ROV in the sea. We first dove to the northern face of the seamount. Here the slope surface is made up of landslide debris consisting of chunks of rock of various sizes.

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Position:  73ºN, 7ºE
Temperature:   4.9ºC
Wind speed:  11-13m/s
Wave height:  2.3m
Visibility: good
Weather:  partially cloudy

 

As we have seen before, sponges and sea anemones have colonized the rock faces. During the dive a skate swam by the ROV cameras and later a squid came into view. It faded in colour at the approach of the ROV.

 

On the next ROV dive we visited the top of the seamount. After having been diving to 3000m, it does not seem very deep to go ‘only’ to 600m! 

 

The top of the seamount was richly covered in animal life. It is a paradise for the marine biologists on board. However, the geologist participants were frustrated by being unable to find any good rocks for sampling in the ‘forest’ of sponges, sea anemones and other coelenterates. 

 

There was an exciting moment when the ROV passed over a large halibut. We heard the skipper call out a request for some fresh input to the dinner menu!!

 

There has been very little research on the seamounts in Norwegian waters. Unfortunately on this cruise we did not have much time to study the abundant sea life present. We will have to come back!