Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

News from the Pelagia

Where is the Pelagia?

The RV Pelagia is the NIOZ flag ship. She is built in 1991 and overhauled in 2010. With an overall length of 66 m, this versatile and stable vessel is suited for research on both coastal seas and open oceans (except for the polar regions).

Find out where RV Pelagia is

Follow the current position of our flag ship via this map.

NIOZ@SEA blogs

Follow the news from our researchers on board.

Tuesday 11 April 2023
OASIS cruise | Exploring the Alboran Sea
During the OASIS cruise, awarded to ICM CSIC by Eurofleets+, we are exploring a little part of this wilderness in the Alboran sea in the westernmost part of Mediterranean Sea.
Monday 27 February 2023
The WISE Expedition to West Antarctic Peninsula
Approximately a year ago from today, NIOZ scientists Julia Engelmann and Swan Sow, along with assisting PhD student Dina Castillo set off on a sampling expedition for the Women in Science Excel (WISE) project. The expedition ran from Feb-May…
Monday 13 February 2023
64PE513 NIOZ@Sea blog: The BEYΩND expedition
Many marine plants and animals use carbonate minerals to build their shells and skeletons. The most well-known examples include coral and shellfish, but several important groups of plankton (organisms that spend their lives afloat in the ocean) do…
Thursday 12 January 2023
Is the ocean getting noisier? The AQUA expedition
Climate change will likely make the oceans noisier. Not only does increased ship traffic add noise, the ongoing dissolution of CO2 into the ocean makes seawater more acidic and that, in turn, makes sound travel further underwater. Various studies…
Tuesday 13 December 2022
Deep sea mining would change the seafloor ecosystem for up to millions of years
“The unique and vulnerable ecosystems of the deep sea are the last ecosystems on earth that haven't been degraded by humans yet. In this muddy environment, potato-sized polymetallic nodules are the only hold-fast for immobile animals like corals,…
Wednesday 09 November 2022
BLOG New Research Fleet Equipment | Training and sea acceptance tests Slocum gliders
After the tender procedure, three Slocum gliders have been purchased from Teledyne Webb Research. The first two weeks of November 2022, a team of scientists, electrical engineers and ship technicians went to SOCIB on Mallorca for combined operational…
Monday 22 August 2022
BLOG I-Nano cruise | Exploring deep-sea nanomaterials
Nanomaterials and nanoparticles are usually connected with high-tech industrial processes. But they have been a natural part of our planet from the very beginning, they show unique catalytic capabilities that may have (had) a major influence on…
Wednesday 22 June 2022
Tracking two harmful algal blooms species through time
When microorganisms or macroalgae grow out of control they can cause harmful algal blooms (HABs). These HABs impact the environment, but may also have negative influence on humans, especially when they produce toxins. Due to human impact and climate…
Tuesday 10 May 2022
TRAILS Spring 2022
The coast of the Wadden Sea islands is dynamic by nature: beaches change shape and size by the forces of wind and waves. In the past, villages on the islands were threatened by floods and the Wadden islands migrated. Nowaday, we try to keep the…
Thursday 21 April 2022
Mixation expedition, estimating ocean mixing
From April 21st researchers on the MIXATION expedition will deploy moorings to calibrate new methods that help us provide better estimates of ocean water mixing. Ocean water mixing is an important component in climate models.