Oceanographic campaign CRISTA MADEIRA-TORE 2022
The oceanographic campaign CRISTA MADEIRA-TORE 2022 Leg 2, took place onboard the research vessel (RV) Mário Ruivo between September 22 and October 7, with the main objectives of:
– continue the baseline of the environmental conditions of the Atlantic Ocean in the Madeira-Tore Ridge region,
– reinforce of the capacity to acquire long and continuous time series of the water column parameters, and
– improve the robotic and technological operational capacity for offshore operations.
For these purposes the following infrastructures were used: i) the Luso ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) of the Portuguese Task Group for the Extension of the Continental Shelf (EMEPC); ii) the EMSO-PT (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water-column Observatory) water column sampling equipments, such as EGIM, Wirewalker and ADCP; iii) the EGIM of INESC TEC; iv) bottom dredgers, rosettes with Niskin bottles, CTD and UCTD; v) Neuston trawls on the sea surface; vi) a magnetometer and vii) biology and microbiology laboratories.
Technicians and scientists in charge of the operations with affiliation to five national institutions and one foreign institution participated on the oceanographic campaign, which operated under a 24h data acquisition regime every day of the campaign. The acquired data allow the quantitative and qualitative characterization of plastics and microplastics on the sea surface, the microplankton populations, the oceanographic parameters of the water column, the geological constitution of the bottom and the biological communities.
ROV Luso- Remotely Operated Vehicle is an unmanned, seabed and water column inspection platform connected to a vessel via signal and ground cables that allows pilots to perform various operations, such as ROV navigation and sampling;
ADCP- (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) is a stand-alone instrument that measures the velocity of water currents over a range of depths;
EGIM- EMSO Generic Instrument Module is a multisensor platform intended to be used in all underwater observatories of the EMSO network with the purpose of producing long time series of water column parameters;
Wirewalker- is a multisensory vertical profiler that moves vertically in the water column powered by wave energy.
CTD- is an instrument that measures conductivity, temperature and depth in the water column as it moves vertically, allowing vertical profiles of these parameters to be obtained. UCTD- Underway instrument allows its dragging during the ship’s navigation.
