RRS James Cook Cruise 10, 13 May-07 Jul 2007. Hotspot ecosystems in the NE Atlantic, UK contribution to the HERMES Project. Mud volcanoes in the Gulf of Cadiz; submarine canyons west of Portugal; submarine canyons in the northern Bay of Biscay

The major objective of RRS James Cook Cruise 10 was to increase our understanding of how seafloor environmental variables affect the biodiversity, structure, function and dynamics of faunal communities in two specific ‘biological hotspot’ environments, mud volcanoes and submarine canyons, on the NE Atlantic continental slope. The cruise was jointly supported by OCEANS 2025 (Theme 5) and the EU Hotspot Environmental Research on the Margins of European Seas (HERMES) Project. The work was based mainly on the use of the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) ISIS, but a wide suite of additional techniques including sediment coring, water column measurement and sampling, benthic trawling and swath mapping were also deployed. Forty-one ROV dives, some lasting for up to 36 hours, were completed during a highly successful cruise. The ROV programme included swath mapping, video and still photography, sediment coring using both push and mini-box corers, rock sampling, collection of biological samples, water sampling, subseafloor temperature measurement, and the placing and manipulating of a variety of seafloor experiments.