Marine

What’s the (Organic) Matter?

March 13, 2018 by Marine Directorate Communications No Comments | Category Marine Directorate general, Marine Directorate Science, Marine Directorate Surveys, Research Vessel Surveys

Picture of MRV Sir John Murray (SJM) provided courtesy of SEPA.

Survey: 0118SJM

Duration: 12-16 March 2018

Gear: Craib corer, CTD, Day grab and Auto sieve.

Objective:

To compare pore-water nutrients, sediment chlorophyll-a and organic matter content among seabed sediments from the Outer and Inner Firth of Clyde and sea lochs.

Procedure:

Figure 1 shows the stations that were successfully sampled over the course of previous surveys (April and October 2017). The proposed survey in March 2018 will revisit a subset of these stations to gain comparable data on nutrient and sediment chlorophyll content between the Inner and Outer Firth, as well as additional information on sediment mixing. Given the time required to steam between the dispersed stations, the survey anticipates the sampling of ~3 stations per day. Under this scenario, we assume the collection of six replicate cores per station, of which three are analysed for pore-water nutrients and three for Chlorophyll-a, with the extraction of five nutrient samples of each nutrient or seven sediment chlorophyll samples per core.

Thus, four days of sampling would yield: 

• 36 cores for the analysis of pore-water nutrients.
• 144 pore-water nutrient samples.
• 36 overlying water nutrient samples.
• 36 cores for the analysis of sediment chlorophyll.
• 252 samples for the analysis of sediment chlorophyll.

Further Information

• Marine Scotland research vessels and surveys
• Other research vessel survey blogs

Tags: organic matter, sampling, SEPA

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