We are leaving the Lucky Strike Mid-Atlantic Ridge volcano and hydrothermal vents after an eventful 12 days cruise with RV Thalassa and VICTOR 6000 ROV. We successfully maintained and reinstalled the components of the EMSO-Azores standalone seafloor observatory:
1 - the two seafloor SEAMON (Sea Monitoring) stations and their connected instruments : a 3-components seismometer and an hydrophone for seismic event detection, two pressure probes for geodetic measurements, a turbidimeter, a video camera, a dissolved-iron analyzer, and an optode (oxygen and temperature probe) for ecological time-studies.
2 - the BOREL transmission buoy, equipped with GPS (buoy location) and meteostation. The buoy communicates acoustically with the seafloor stations and relays data (detection of seismic events, pressure at seafloor, video snapshots, turbidity, fluid temperature and chemistry, system status) via satellite every 6 hours to the Ifremer node of the EMSO (European Multidisciplinary Subsea Observatory) data center.
This system is nested in arrays of autonomous instruments at the seafloor (seismometers, geodetic pressure probes, temperature probes in vents, biological and microbiological colonization devices) and in the water column (oceanographic mooring).
Mathilde Cannat and Pierre Marie Sarradin (co-chiefs).
The Momarsat 2012 Science Party : Celine Bachelier, Thibaut Barreyre, Alexandre Blin, Mathilde Cannat, Alain Castillo, Valerie Chavagnac, Jean Yves Coail, Romuald Daniel, Agathe Laes-Huon, Julien Legrand, Pascal Pichavant, Christian Podeur, Pierre Marie Sarradin, Jozee Sarrazin, Virginie Tanguy.
Image below - The TEMPO (camera+optode+iron analyser+turbidimeter) module in operation at the Tour Eiffel vent site on July 14th 2012, just before its recovery for maintenance (the arm of VICTOR 6000 is about to grab the chemical and temperature probe tripod).
