About the Cruise

The research vessel DANA will transit from Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel, Azores, to Hirtshals, Denmark from May April 23rd - May 5th 2014. The Danish Center for Marine Research has offered this transit for teaching and training and a consortium of Danish researchers led by the Center for Geomicrobiology at Aarhus University has organized an onboard Ph.D. course on sedimentary biology, geochemistry and geology.

The course is aimed at Ph.D. students and post docs from Danish universities with little or no seagoing experience and provides an interdisciplinary introduction to research on marine sediments through lectures and shipboard research projects. The projects will demonstrate how ship-based research is performed, coordinated and organized, and thus prepare students for future research cruises. The topics cover benthic research broadly from collection and interpretation of seismic data, via sedimentology and geomicrobiology to benthos zoology.

The cruise will have combined research and training objectives, but with strong emphasis on the PhD course. There will be coordinated sediment sampling by gravity-corer, box-corer and multi-corer. Site surveys will be performed with sub-bottom profiler. We will supplement the benthic sampling program with CTD profiling of the water column. The ship will accommodate 12 students and ca 6 teachers on board.

More information on R/V Dana can be found on the homepage at DTU Aqua here.