As part
of the `Pelagia around Africa' programme the Dutch research vessel Pelagia will
be in the area between Madagascar and Mozabique, roughly between 25°S-35°E and
15°S-45°E, in March-April 2000. This affords a unique opportunity to carry out an
Agulhas Current Sources Experiment (ACSEX) in the Mozambique Channel, a
part of the world's ocean where hardly any observations have been
obtained thus far.
The purpose of the cruise
is 1) to obtain hydrographic observations of the Mozambique current between
Madagascar and Mozambique and 2) to obtain observations on the magnitude of the
horizontal currents in the Mozambique current by deploying an array of moorings
on a section across the Mozambique channel, roughly at its shallowest width.
These moorings will be recovered in February - March 2001. During the cruise
some short-term moorings will be deployed on the same cross-section.
The cruise is funded by
the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research of Utrecht University (IMAU,
partly via COACH) and the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ).
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