RRS James Cook Cruise 87, 31 May - 18 Jun 2013. The Twilight Cruise to the Porcupine Abyssal Plain Sustained Observatory

Lampitt, R.S.; et al, .. 2015 RRS James Cook Cruise 87, 31 May - 18 Jun 2013. The Twilight Cruise to the Porcupine Abyssal Plain Sustained Observatory. Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, 114pp. (National Oceanography Centre Cruise Report, 27)

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Abstract/Summary

The Twilight Zone is that depth zone in the ocean between 100 and 1000m depth where a tremendous amount of activity takes place. Much of the material containing carbon which sinks out of the upper sunlit or "Euphotic" zone is broken down in the twilight zone and then mixes back up to the surface in the winter. If it manages to sink further, this carbon is lost for periods of centuries. The main factor that affects this sedimentation process and the rate of destruction of the sinking particles is the structure and function of the biological community living near the sea surface and in the twilight zone beneath. This is because the planktonic plants and animals living there both generate and destroy particles. The Porcupine Abyssal Plain sustained observatory (PAP) is a heavily instrumented area of the open ocean 350 miles southwest of Ireland and in a water depth of 4800m. The instruments measure a wide variety of properties of the environment above the water, within it and on the seabed and much of the data is transmitted in real time to land via satellite.

Item Type:	Publication - Report
Programmes:	NOC Programmes
NORA Subject Terms:	Marine Sciences
Date made live:	27 Aug 2015 14:34 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511689

Item Type:

Publication - Report

Programmes:

NOC Programmes

NORA Subject Terms:

Marine Sciences

Date made live:

27 Aug 2015 14:34 +0 (UTC)

URI:

https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/511689