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MSM 20/1 "Floating University"

During cruise MSM 20/1 (06.01.2012 - 15.01.2012; Cape Town - Walvis Bay) a "Floating University" will be carried out to teach master students the acquisition, processing and interpretation of hydroacoustic data gathered with the on-board systems EM120, EM1002 and PARASOUND. Originally cruise MSM20/1 was dedicated to recover 12 OBS stations which were deployed on and around the Walvis Ridge. Chief scientis is Dr. Wolfram Geissler (AWI, Bremerhaven). Since only 6 scientist/technicians are need for this purpose, an initiative was started to use this unique opportunity for a master student course on board. Thanks to funding by the DFG, 15 students from Germany and Namibia will join this cruise, teached by Tilmann Schwenk, Paul Wintersteller (MARUM) and Willi Weinrebe (IFM-GEOMAR, Kiel).
Teaching will be done during the transits to and between the stations to use the hydroacoustic systems in different water depths (from upper slope down to the deep sea basin) and environments (slope, abyssal plain, Walvis-Ridge). Therefore all different running modes of the systems can be applied. If the releases of the OBS are working without delay, up to 2 days might be available for extra surveys. A scientific targets nearby is a sediment wave field on the slope, which has been indentified in Parasound data collected during several cruise carried out within the University of Bremen special research project SFB 261 and pre-site surveys for ODP Leg 175. Another target will be a prominent reflector found in PARASOUND data from the abyssal basins, which represents a thick diatom ooze layer.
Map of the study area around the Walvis Ridge. Red circles indicate the locations of the OBS stations. Black lines represents Parasound profiles from former cruises. Black dots are DSDP and IODP sites. The yellow area represents the sediment wave field off Namibia.