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Ghost fishing

  • 9 July 2020
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Day 19: 9 July 2020

Before beginning on the long transit to the ‘southern’ part of our voyage, we spend another two days sitting on Iceland’s continental shelf and doing ROV dives through the beautiful coral reef landscapes. Sadly, evidence of fishing pressures on these beautiful structures is visible. Corals need centuries to reach maturity, and on seafloor devastated by fishing activity they will probably never be able to grow again. Even in the bathymetry data we are able to see the footprint left behind by (most probably) the nephrops trawls – a fishing instrument used to skim over the seabed to catch lobster and langoustines. The positive side of this story is that the reefs were destroyed before people knew about their existence, and the reefs in the Lonsdjùp area were placed under protection in 2011. We aim to create more and more marine protected areas in the future.

Luckily, there are still some very vivid reefs and ocean inhabitants around us, as we can tell from the ROV dives. Thanks to incredibly good weather conditions – warm (well, as warm as it gets at 63° N, but t-shirt weather works!), sunny and calm sea – we can dive nearly every day.

Speaking of which – it is a unique experience to see R/V Sonne so far up north, as its usual area of operation is the Pacific and Indian Ocean. Although coronavirus is limiting a lot of travel, we now at least have the opportunity to do our research in the colder waters. Seeing this vessel in front of Iceland’s snow-covered summits is a very rare scene that we are able to enjoy, thanks to the gorgeous crew who took us on a Zodiac tour around our mother ship. Tomorrow it’s time to leave the continental shelf area and head for a region south of Iceland on the mid Atlantic ridge, where we hope to find hydrothermal vents.

Our track so far – now we’re heading south for Area 6 on the mid Atlantic ridge.
On the Zodiac sightseeing tour in the middle of the (incredibly calm) North Atlantic! L-R: Karen Jeskulke (technical assistant at Senckenberg), Mia Schumacher (Bathymetry at GEOMAR), Florian Bischof (ROV team GEOMAR), Inken Suck (ROV Team, GEOMAR)
A ghost long line. Although being covered with life, lost fishing gear can be harmful to the marine ecology. They get entangled with the fine corals and thereby cause damage and lonely drifting nets still keep catching fish.
Behind the scenes: The legacy of trawl net fishing. What used to be a beautiful under water landscape is now a devastated field.
Ascesta excavata. With their tentacles, they constantly filter the water for food.
Zooming in on the sea floor reveals its true magic and the closer you get, the more there is to see: Here is a shrimp sitting on hundreds of brittle stars hiding from the light under a lovely orange coral.
A cushion star hanging over a little and recovering from last night’s feast!
This curious fellow is a squat lobster. His name is his program, he actually does squats to jump forward and move over the sediment!
What resembles tart fondant is in fact a very impressive sponge formation carrying gorgeously curled and branched out pink little brittle stars.
This bizarre organism is a sea feather or sea pen. They can be thin and tall or short and stout like this one!
Shine a light: A bright colourful coral structure in the middle of the blue ocean.
Sometimes, a closer look is needed: What initially looked like a watering can turned out to be a stone with feather stars, bryozoans, sponges and brittle stars on top!
PrevPreviousA hard day’s work
NextIn transit…to volcanoes!Next

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This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 818123 (iAtlantic). This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be  made of the information contained therein.