Scheme of expeditionary operations in the 59th cruise of the RV Akademik Ioffe. The route coinciding with the geoacoustic profiling tacks, the studied polygons, as well as oceanological stations are marked.

Expedition through the eyes of students and graphic presentation of works

From September 12 to October 26, 2021, the next voyage of the RV Akademik Ioffe to the northeastern part of the Atlantic Ocean took place.

The main goal of the expedition is to obtain new data on the geomorphology of the bottom of deep-water passages and in the areas of distribution of contourite drifts, on modern hydrological conditions and features of sedimentation, as well as on the Pleistocene-Holocene sedimentation conditions in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean.

Head of the expedition: Deputy Director for Research, Head of the Laboratory of Geology of the Atlantic, PhD L.D. Bashirova.

Deputy Head of the Expedition: Junior Researcher of the Laboratory of Geology of the Atlantic L.A. Kuleshova.

The expedition was attended by 15 employees of the Atlantic Branch of the IO RAS and 2 employees of the University of London Royal Holloway. For 10 undergraduate and graduate students, seminars and master classes were held within the framework of the organization of the Floating University of the Kant Baltic Federal University and the IO RAS.

Expeditionary work in the northeastern part of the Atlantic Ocean was carried out at 4 test sites and oceanological stations: in the southeastern part of the Iberian Basin, the deep-water Discovery and Western passages, as well as in the area of the Josephine Seamount. Accompanying acoustic profiling of the bottom of the Gloria transform fault was also performed.

Based on the results of the expedition, students, together with researchers from the Atlantic Branch of the IO RAS, prepared abstracts for the EGU-2022 conference (Vienna, Austria).

We are grateful to the crew of the RV Akademik Ioffe and personally to rhe Captain A.V. Zybin for help in carrying out scientific research and hospitality, as well as E.G. Morozov, D.I. Frey and E.V. Dorokhova for invaluable assistance in planning and implementing expeditionary research and advice.