21st AMT research cruise sets sail
29th September 2011
The 21st Atlantic Meridional Transect (AMT)
research cruise will be leaving Avonmouth (UK) today and will spend
just over 6 weeks sailing the length of the Atlantic, arriving in
Punta Arenas (Chile) in mid-November.
AMT is a inter-disciplinary scientific programme that undertakes
biological, chemical and physical oceanographic research during an
annual voyage between the UK and destinations in the South
Atlantic; a distance of up to 13,500km! This journey crosses a
range of marine ecosystems from sub-polar to tropical and from
shelf seas and upwelling systems to mid-ocean gyres (travelling
through 2 out of the 5 major gyres across the globe, shown as dark
blue on the route image).
6 scientists from PML are on board and are joined by
colleagues from the National Oceanography Centre
(UK), British Oceanographic Data Centre (UK), Bigelow
Laboratory for Ocean Sciences (USA), National Institute of
Oceanography and Fisheries (Egypt), Institute of Oceanology PAS
(Poland), University of Vigo (Spain), Spanish Institute of
Oceanography, University of East Anglia and Max-Planck-Institut
(Germany).
This year’s on-board blogger is one of
PML’s PhD students who will be keeping us up-to-date with the
science, the journey and life on a research cruise – follow the
AMT21 blog at www.amtblog.org.uk.