On June 27th 2016, the research vessel RRS James Cook departed from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, England to attempt one of its most ambitious expeditions in its ten year history. Heading for the TAG area of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (26°N), we will attempt to image and drill the sub-surface of extinct hydrothermal massive sulphide deposits. With a cruise duration of 55 days, this is at the edge of the RRS James Cook’s duration. We are following close behind our GEOMAR partner’s Blue Mining expedition on the R/V Meteor (https://bluemining.eu/researchcruiseblog/) where they have deployed a robotic autonomous underwater vehicle to map, and near-bottom seismics to image, the hydrothermal mounds. Our expedition (JC138) will use new electromagnetic systems developed under Blue Mining partners GEOMAR and the University of Southampton to create a 3D image of the sub-surface structure.
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Agreement no. 604500.