Day 6
A trawl full of sponges!! Last night’s Agassiz trawl will keep the macro-biologists busy for some time.
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| Date: | 6 August 2009 |
| Weather conditions: | overcast, but good visibility |
| Temperature (air / water): | 10.4/ 7.0 °C |
| Wind speed: | 4.6m/s |
| Wave height: | calm |
| Location: | 73°N, 8°E |
Daily report:
The macro-biologists worked the whole night through on the Schultz Massive seamount just northwest of Loki's Castle.
Seamounts are oases of life in the open ocean - places where the seafloor is lifted up into the "light zone", to depths of 1000m or less. At these depths light effects support greater diversity and biomass in seamount ecosystems, than are found in the surrounding deeper waters.
The Schultz Massive lies on the edge of the Arctic Ocean. Hans Tore explains that it has a ‘typical' Arctic Ocean fauna, but that this is relatively poorly studied so the material sampled last night will enable CGB researchers to make and important contribution to this field, quantitatively assessing many of the organisms living here. In particular, they will preserve the samples in such a way that DNA studies will be possible; this is an important new dimension in modern taxonomic work.
Interestingly, the seamount is a sponge-based ecosystem. Here sponges play a predominant role in providing the physical structure of the ecosystem, just as corals do in coral reef-based ecosystems elsewhere. The glass spines and hard skeleton portions of sponges have accumulated here to depths of several meters and form substrates on which other organisms can settle. Hans Tore explains that there is a movement towards recognising that such areas should be protected just as coral reefs are.
During the cruise in 2008, the ROV filmed a transect across the seamount. Hans Tore used the same transect in his trawl. This will give him a unique opportunity to compare pictures of living organisms in their natural habitat with preserved specimens
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