64PE374 - Dagboek 2 (in het Engels)

Mediterranean Sea has fascinated traders, explorers, adventurers and philosophers from time immemorial and was the subject of the first underwater exploration by the ancient Greeks. It is still fascinates scientists today and is unique in many respects among the world oceans. Mediterranean is perhaps the largest oligotrophic, nutrient-starved sea in the world and as such provides an excellent opportunity to study nutrient cycling and in particular the impact of nutrient inputs from land through human activities. With its unique mode of anti-estuarine circulation with deep water formation occurring in several locations operating on time scales less than a century it has the potential to sensitively record the impact of on-going climate change.

Raja sampling the ctd

My research interests are to understand nutrient cycling in the ocean and its relationship to the biological carbon pump on various time scales. In particular, in the Mediterranean-Black Sea GEOTRACES transect my focus will be on N cycling which I will be investigating through collecting sea water and suspended particulate samples for stable nitrogen and oxygen analysis of dissolved nitrate and stable carbon and nitrogen analysis of organic matter in my laboratory at the University of Edinburgh. By focussing on a major limiting nutrient I hope that my results will allow comparisons to be made between macronutrient and micronutrient sources and cycling in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.

Filtration setup

Given the wide array of geochemical expertise assembled here on board RV Pelagia with state-of -art trace metal sampling gear there is no doubt in my mind that this study will provide unprecedented new insights into the working of the Mediterranean Sea and its environment establishing a firm bench work for future investigations. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the crew and fellow scientists onboard RV Pelagia for the happy sailing.

Raja Ganeshram
From RV Pelagia
1st August 2013