MARIA S. MERIAN on course for Baffin Bay

Sep 2, 2022

The research vessel MARIA S. MERIAN in the port of Reykjavik. The MARUM expedition now starting will go to Baffin Bay. Photo: MARUM, Uni Bremen; V. Diekamp

The research vessel MARIA S. MERIAN sets sail on September 2. Her destination on expedition MSM 111 is the Baffin Bay, located between Greenland and Canada. On board are cruise director Michal Kucera from MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen and 22 researchers from MARUM, the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Aarhus University (Denmark), GEOTOP of the Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada) and the University of Tübingen.

Their goal is to retrieve records of the last collapse of the Greenland ice cap preserved in marine sediments off Greenland using unique drilling technology. Data on partial collapses of the ice cap from the last two warm periods, 130,000 and 420,000 years ago, will help researchers explore the stability and melting behavior of the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere in a future warmer Earth climate. The new climate archive will allow the scientific team to study how ice sheet collapse, oceanic circulation and changes in the marine environment in Baffin Bay, where most of Greenland's ice streams flow, are interlinked.

The seafloor drilling rig MARUM-MeBo 200 will be used to reach deep enough into the continental slope of the Baffin Bay to recover the corresponding time intervals in sediment cores. In addition, water samples as well as plankton and sediment material will be collected.

The cruise is part of the research program in the Cluster of Excellence of the University of Bremen "The Ocean Floor - Earth’s Uncharted Interface", which is located at MARUM.

More information about the cluster here.

The logo of the expedition MSM 111

Link to the position of the RV MARIA S. MERIAN

Link to the ship's log of the expedition (in German).

Check the MARUM Instagram channel for the latest news about the expedition.