Kaldfjorden Sediment Trap Deployment

Sediment traps were deployed in the Arctic fjord Kaldfjorden, Kvaløya, Tromsø on the 8th September 2017 by Andrew Sweetman (Heriot Watt University), Marta Cecchetto (Heriot Watt University), Hege Vågen (University of Oslo) and Carl Ballantine (Akvaplan Niva).  

Traps will remain in the fjord for 10 months were they will measure the flux of organic material to the seafloor close to a fish farm and in a control site in the center of the fjord.  

Andrew, Carl and Marta heading out to deploy the first sediment trap

Preparing the trap mooring 

Preparing the acoustic releases for the sediment trap mooring deployment

JellyFarm in Svalbard Posten.

Looking back at the lab experiment performed at IRIS (Stavanger) in September 2016, looking forward to work with this team on the next experiment in September 2017

WP2: Quantifying interactions between  aquaculture and jelly-falls on organic matter cycling in fjord sediments. 

Sediments collected in Hardanger fjord at two different depths, in the vicinity and at a distance from a fish farm were collected and incubated in the lab at IRIS.

Periphylla periphylla being thawed, weighed and cut before addition to the sediment cores.

Sediment cores incubated in the lab. Andrew Sweetman adding 13C labelled algae before the addition of P. periphylla.

 Andrew Sweetman measuring oxygen profiles in the sediment of experimental cores.

Slicing, measuring, mixing, subsampling and sieving sediments at the end of the experiment.

Team work at its best!

JellyFarm Meeting, Oslo, 22nd to 24th May

The JellyFarm Project team in Oslo for the 2017 JellyFarm Meeting. 

The JellyFarm Project team in Oslo for the 2017 JellyFarm Meeting.

Dr Siliva Hess (University of Oslo) presents results on foraminifera communities in a jellyfish dominated and a fish-dominated fjord in Western Norway

Lars Birkeland Sjetne (University of Olso) presented results from his masters thesis examining organic carbon accumulation from fish farms in Hardangerfjorden, using a micro paleontological and geochemical study.  

Dr Dan Jones (National Oceanography Centre, Southampton) presented results from work package 5 examining depth effects on jellyfall scavenging dynamics. 

Dr Paul Renaud (Akvaplan Niva) coordinates planning for experiments in the Fall to examine the combined effect of organic input from aquaculture and jellyfalls on benthic biogeochemistry in Kaldfjorden, North Norway. 

Flume Update 28th March

Mimic jellyfish have been introduced to the experimental flume system.  Along with the oxygen scavenger irrigation system we will now examine the impact of fallen jellyfish carcasses on oxygen flux in the benthic boundary layer.

Microsensor measuring oxygen between mimic jellyfish carcasses

Mimic jellyfish in the flume 

JellyFarm Flume Experiments March 2017

Experiments are continuing for JellyFarm Work Package 3 at NIOZ, Yerseke, carried out by Kathy Dunlop, Tjeerd Bouma and Andrew Sweetman with the advice and assistance of Anton Tramper and Dick Van Oevelen.  

In 2016 we successfully collected data to study the physical impacts of jelly-falls on benthic boundary layer flow dynamics.  In 2017 we are further this investigation by looking into the impact of jelly-falls on Benthic Boundary Layer oxygen dynamics.  

Kathy working with oxygen microsensors in the NIOZ flume, Yerseke.

  

Jelly Farm Box Coring Cruise Hardangerfjorden

Amalia Mailli and Melissa Brandner from Nord University setting up to collect samples for the Metabenthogenomics Project. 

RV Solvik docked at Rosendal after a day collecting cores on Hardangerfjorden 

Solvik returning to Rosendal for the cores to be transported to IRIS, Stavanger, for the JellyFarm benthic core experiments.  

Dr Kathy Dunlop after a day of box coring 

Gemini Coring 

JellyFarm box coring team Kathy Dunlop, Melissa Brander, Hector Andrade, Lars Birkeland Sjetre and Captain Leon Pedersen.