RV Tangaroa carried out a six-week voyage to Antarctica and the Southern Ocean between 9 February and 21 March 2018 with scientists from NIWA and the University of Auckland.
Scientists did a range of surveys to better understand the processes governing this environment and its relevance to New Zealand. These included oceanographic observations, atmospheric observations, whale and benthic habitat studies, along with studies of plankton communities. The whale studies were carried out by the University of Auckland.
Voyage map
The map below shows the course of RV Tangaroa taken during the voyage, points of interest with red markers and blog posts with an orange "i" marker. Dates and times detailed are UTC, 13 hours behind NZ daylight time.
Voyage blogs
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NIWA ship returns from Antarctica with ‘pieces of a puzzle’
Media release21 March 2018The absence of sea ice near Antarctica over the past six weeks has astonished scientists undertaking research aboard NIWA’s flagship research vessel Tangaroa.
Tangaroa Marine Environment and Ecosystem Voyage 2018 -
Blog: Time to head home - 17 March
17 March 2018Today we left the area south of 60°S and have started the five-day return journey to New Zealand. -
Blog: Passive acoustic mooring - 15 March
15 March 2018A couple of days ago we deployed the last of three long-term passive acoustic monitoring moorings, as a collaboration between the Ross-RAMP MBIE Endeavour project and The Australian Antarctic Division. -
Blog: The inhabitants of the twilight zone of the open-ocean - 15 March
15 March 2018
Think about a futuristic world where at night time, people use different kind of self-propelled vehicles to hover across cities, illuminating the skies with different colours and shapes, while transiting around them. -
Blog: Zooplankton, the pelagic food-web, and carbon cycling - 14 March
14 March 2018 We have been conducting daily net tows to get an integrated picture of the macro-zooplankton dynamics in the area. -
Blog: southern ocean climate models - 13 March
13 March 2018Twice a day at 1pm and 8.30 pm Sean Hartery, NIWA, and Peter Kuma, University of Canterbury, head for the Fantail at the very back of the ship to release their weather balloons. -
Blog: Plankton blooms and clouds - what's the link? - 11 March
11 March 2018 Today we found NIWA’s Andrew Marriner hard at work in the Ocean-Atmosphere Container Lab and asked him to explain his work onboard. -
Blog - specimens collected by epibenthic sled - 10 March
10 March 2018To verify the identities of animals we see on the DTIS camera, we use an epibenthic sled to collect physical samples of animals from the seafloor. -
Blog: Radially Aligned Linear Photosynthetron - 9 March
9 March 2018In the back of Karl Safi’s lab, where we found him working in the semi-dark, is a very futuristic looking piece of kit called the Radially Aligned Linear Photosynthetron (RALPH). -
Blog: Long Ridge seamount communities - 7, 8 March
8 March 2018The Benthic team have been observing and identifying animals living on the seabed at Long Ridge, north of the Ross Sea. -
Blog: the screaming sixties - 6 March
6 March 2018Today the screaming sixties are living up to their name. We are at 67°S, just east of Scott Island, and deck work has been suspended temporarily while we weather a storm. -
Blog: atmospheric research - 5 March
5 March 2018Sean Hartery, a PhD student from Canterbury University based at NIWA, is collecting samples and data for two main areas of atmospheric research while he is out here in the Ross Sea: ice nuclei and aerosols.