{"id":3672,"date":"2015-07-21T11:56:33","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T11:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.scotland.gov.uk\/coastal-monitoring\/?p=3672"},"modified":"2016-08-17T14:24:13","modified_gmt":"2016-08-17T13:24:13","slug":"masts-deep-sea-collaboration-project-update-21-july-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.gov.scot\/marine-scotland\/2015\/07\/21\/masts-deep-sea-collaboration-project-update-21-july-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"MASTS Deep Sea Collaboration Project (Survey 0915S) \u2013 update 21 July 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our update of the\u00a0Deep Sea survey<\/a>\u00a0continues…..<\/p>\n

Day 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steaming west, passed the Butt of Lewis, the Flannen Isles, St Kilda, off the continental slope and into the Rockall Trough. The winds are easing and the sea state is improving all the time. Between construction of the multicore and final preparation of the lander,a sperm whale was spotted spouting in the distance. By midnight we were hovering in a depth of 1800 m about to deploy the whale bone lander. Alan Jamieson of Aberdeen University\u2019s Oceanlab has designed to lander to study the rates and processes by which a group of specialist worms devour whale bones. Time lapse cameras will take pictures over the next year. A few last minute checks and over she went, the strobe beacon descending until its pressure sensors turned it off and it made its way 1800 m to the seabed. One of the graduate students aboard specialises in making 3-D digital images and has created a model of the whale skull, it can be seen here. She will make similar 3-D reconstructions of the creatures we find on the survey.<\/p>\n

Day 3<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steaming to the Hatton Rockall Basin. The site sits at the base of Rockall bank \u2013 it\u2019s a small trench 1200 m deep and some 2 miles long by half a mile wide. We arrive around midday and first up the Oceanlab team deploy their baited lander hoping to attract scavenging fish in the area to photograph. Next up we get the TV camera ready. Neil Collie and Mike Stewart of MSS remotely fly the TV \u2018chariot\u2019 over the seabed at a height of about 2-4 m taking HD video footage of the seabed. To begin with it is a familiar deep-sea floor \u2013 worm burrows and starfish, the odd seapen and sponge. Then suddenly the visibility begins to get poor due to particulate matter in the water. It like it\u2019s snowing down there. Then suddenly some odd features are seen to snake their way across the seabed \u2013 greenish with white patches. The particulate matter gets heavier until it\u2019s like driving in a blizzard, then all of a sudden its so thick we can\u2019t see the seabed anymore and we\u2019re only 1-2 m above it. Driving the chariot blind for another half hour we eventually bring the camera back. Very strange.<\/p>\n

Francis Neat<\/span><\/a>, Marine Scotland Science<\/p>\n

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Further Information:<\/strong><\/p>\n