Welcome to this first instalment of the Blue Mining blog! Over the next couple of months we are aiming to keep all our avid readers up to date with our ongoing science, across both the RV Meteor (M127) and RRS James Cook (JC138) cruises associated with the EU-FP7 funded project “Blue Mining”. This first cruise, M127, is led by chief scientist Dr. Sven Petersen and co-chief scientist Dr. Jörg Bialas, (both GEOMAR) and is addressing research questions and technology development associated with work packages 1 (resource discovery) and 2 (resource assessment).
Over the next few days we are planning to provide a bit more information regarding each of the working groups on board (sediment coring, geological mapping, seismology, meteorology), the technology they use (such as the autonomous underwater vehicle AUV Abyss), aims for the cruise and how they aim to achieve these aims. However we will start with some background information about the TAG hydrothermal field, and why this is of such interest to our project. (read more)
Agreement no. 604500.