Meteor: 4. Weekly Report

We have reached the end of our transit expedition from the coastal, productive, upwelling waters of Namibia, through the South and Equatorial Atlantic, and final transit to the Canary Islands. During the final transit, scientific work slowed down quite a bit for the majority of the scientific party, with only a few measurements still being done on samples collected earlier on the cruise, and efforts went into packing and stowing equipment and samples. The packing of containers turned out to be tricky due to rougher seas from trade winds in the subtropical Northeast Atlantic, slowing down the ship and deck work. But all is safely stowed and ready for shipment back to Germany: equipment and supplies in two containers, and precious frozen and cooled samples ready for pick-up in Las Palmas. The shipboard work is complete, and now comes the analysis of data and samples in our home laboratories in Bremen, Oldenburg, Wilhelmshaven, Warnemünde, Munich and Hentjes Bay.

This is the last weekly report from the R/V Meteor Expedition M148/2 “EreBUS”, and at this point I would personally like to thank the scientific crew for their tireless contributions to the project, despite the challenges of pursuing a rigorous scientific plan with little time for setting up and in the face of less than optimal wind and wave conditions at the outset. I especially would like to thank Captain Detlef Korte and his entire crew for their professionality, enduring patience and cheerfulness. Meteor ran like clockwork and we gratefully acknowledge the gift of extra station time. I would like to thank my colleague, Wiebke Mohr, who not only helped with the daunting task of getting my English into German, but also with many additional shipboard organizational duties. Ulrike Tietjen’s organizational magic back home on shore also deserves a word of thanks. All in all, it was a privilege and a pleasure to sail and do science again on the R/V Meteor.

Greetings from Las Palmas from Tim Ferdelman, Chief Scientist, on behalf of the scientists and crew