University of Heidelberg
Polarstern and Meteor Unit
Douala City
May 7, 2008
Periodic Report
Meteor 55: 4th Weekly Report
The fourth week of the cruise has been full of incident. Remaining uppermost in our minds is our unexpected meeting with Polarstern on the high seas. More about that later. The week also saw us collect our 2000 water sample, complete our section across the tropical Atlantic including sampling over the continental shelf of Guinea Bissau, and we also conducted our final 'routine' CTD station. We initiated a series of 'mega-experiments', or on-deck incubations, involving most of the groups on board. These experiments will continue during the transit to Douala. The experiments are already stimulating a lot of discussion concerning follow-up research on future expeditions. More about those ideas in my final report perhaps. Underway and air sampling will continue until we leave the waters of the Ivory Coast.
Our memories of the past week are dominated by the high-seas meeting of Polarstern and Meteor which took place on Friday 8th November at 1300 UTC. Thanks to networking between the DWD weather technicians on board Polarstern and Meteor, we had learned, mid-way through our cruise that Polarstern was steaming southwards from Vigo to Cape Town. Clearly our cruise tracks were going to cross, but the chance of an intersection seemed exceedingly remote. Polarstern was on a rapid transit to Cape Town and had a very tight schedule. Our temporal constraint was based on ...