All going well, this day two weeks I will be on board the Marine Institute of Ireland‘s research vessel, the RV Celtic Explorer, on the hunt for the extent of the British-Irish Ice Sheet (BIIS).
The RV Celtic Explorer (© David Brannigan-Oceansport) and the Celtic Sea (© Google Earth)
In cooperation with NUI Maynooth under the 3U Partnership, the Organic Geochemistry Research (OGRe) team from Dublin City University will be joining Dr. Stephen McCarron taking sediment samples in the Celtic Sea south of the island of Ireland. Our aim will be to carry out sampling and preliminary analysis whilst on the cruise, and then to perform further detailed geochemical analysis of the samples back in our laboratory. We will be sub sampling sediment from vibrocores and obtaining grab samples from the sea bed. Pore water from these sediments will be taken onboard and some spectrophotometric nutrient analyses will be carried out in situ with remaining water samples frozen and transported back to DCU. We also be measuring temperature and salinity as well as sampling the water column using the Explorer’s Rosette sampler. Our final task will be to use plankton nets to determine the macrobiotic species present in the region at this time.
The team is also made up of researchers from the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI), Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), British Geological Survey (BGS), University of Durham, and Queens University Belfast (QUB). Together we hope to uncover some exciting information about the BIIS and also the relatively understudied area of the Celtic Sea.
More information can be found on the expedition website.
Sean F Jordan 