RV SONNE Fahrtbericht / Cruise Report SO239 EcoResponse Assessing the Ecology, Connectivity and Resilience of Polymetallic Nodule Field Systems Balboa (Panama) – Manzanillo (Mexico) 11.03. -30.04.2015 GEOMAR REPORT Berichte aus dem GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel Nr. 25 (N. Ser.) November 2015 RV SONNE Fahrtbericht / Cruise Report SO239 EcoResponse Assessing the Ecology, Connectivity and Resilience of Polymetallic Nodule Field Systems Balboa (Panama) – Manzanillo (Mexico) 11.03. -30.04.2015 Berichte aus dem GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel Nr. 25 (N. Ser.) ISSN Nr.: 2193-8113 Das GEOMAR Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel The GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel ist Mitglied der Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft is a member of the Helmholtz Association of Deutscher Forschungszentren e.V. German Research Centres Herausgeber / Editor: Prof. Dr. Pedro Martínez Arbizu and Matthias Haeckel GEOMAR Report ISSN N..r 2193-8113, DOI 10.3289/GEOMAR_REP_NS_25_2015 Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel / Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel GEOMAR Dienstgebäude Westufer / West Shore Building Düsternbrooker Weg 20 D-24105 Kiel Germany Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel / Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel GEOMAR Dienstgebäude Ostufer / East Shore Building Wischhofstr. 1-3 D-24148 Kiel Germany Tel.: +49 431 600-0 Fax: +49 431 600-2805 www.geomar.de RV SONNE SO239 Cruise Report / Fahrtbericht Balboa (Panama) – Manzanillo (Mexico) 11th March 2015 – 30th April 2015 SO239 EcoResponse Assessing the Ecology, Connectivity and Resilience of Polymetallic Nodule field Systems Chief scientist: Prof. Dr. Pedro Martínez Arbizu, Senckenberg am Meer, Deutsches Zentrum für Marine Biodiversitätsforschung, Wilhelmshaven 1 TOC / Inhaltsverzeichnis Inhalt 1. Cruise summary / Zusammenfassung .................................................................................... 4 1.1 German / Deutsch ............................................................................................................. 4 1.2 English / Englisch ............................................................................................................. 4 2. Participants / Teilnehmer ........................................................................................................ 4 2.1 Principal investigators / Leitende Wissenschaftler ........................................................... 4 2.2 Scientific party / wissenschaftliche Fahrtteilnehmer ....................................................... 5 2.3 Crew / Mannschaft ........................................................................................................... 8 3. Narrative of the cruise / Ablauf der Forschungsfahrt ............................................................. 9 4. Aims of the Cruise / Zielsetzung der Forschungsfahrt ......................................................... 15 5. Agenda of the cruise / Programm der Forschungsfahrt ........................................................ 16 6. Settings of the working area / Beschreibung des Arbeitsgebiets ......................................... 17 7. Work details and first results / Beschreibung der Arbeiten im Detail einschließlich erster Ergebnisse ................................................................................................................................ 23 7.1 Description of the Gears ................................................................................................. 23 7.1.1 Ship-based hydroacoustic mapping (EM122) (Greinert) ............................................ 23 7.1.2. AUV Mission Summary (Rothenbeck, Steinführer, Triebe, Wenzlaff) ...................... 25 7.1.3 CTD (Vasiliu, Preuss) .................................................................................................. 28 7.1.4 Deployment of ROV KIEL 6000 during expedition SO239 onboard RV SONNE in the Clarion Clipperton Fracture Zone (CCZ) in the northern tropical Pacific Ocean (ROV- Team GEOMAR, Kiel: Abegg, Bodendorfer, Cuno, Hennke, Huusmann, Pieper, Plöger and Suck) ..................................................................................................................................... 29 7.1.5 Multi-corer (MUC) (Vanreusel, Macheriotou, Khodami, Raschka, Fioretti, Martinez Arbizu) ................................................................................................................................. 33 7.1.6 Box-corer (Menot, Hoffmann) .................................................................................... 35 7.1.7 Epibenthic sledge (Kaiser) .......................................................................................... 36 7.1.8 Gravity corer (Volz, Preuss, Ozegowski) .................................................................... 38 7.1.9 Amphipod/Ostracod Traps (Robert) ............................................................................ 39 7.1.10 DIAS Image Annotation (Schoening) ....................................................................... 40 7.1.11 MAPR measurements (Weiß, Schoening and Greinert) ............................................ 41 7.1.12 BoBo, DOS Lander and thermistor mooring (Greinert, de Stigter, van Haren, Weiß and Schoening) ..................................................................................................................... 42 7.2 First results ......................................................................................................................... 46 7.2.1 Ship-based hydroacoustic mapping (EM122), some results (Greinert) ...................... 46 7.2.2 Water column characteristics (Vasiliu) ........................................................................ 57 7.2.2.1 Hydrographic conditions ...................................................................................... 57 7.2.2.2 Turbidity and Suspended Particulate Matter ........................................................ 60 2 7.2.2.3 Chemistry ............................................................................................................. 61 7.2.2.4 Biology ................................................................................................................. 64 7.2.3 Water column, pore water and sediment geochemistry (Preuss, Volz, Löffler, Ozegowski, Moje) ................................................................................................................ 65 7.2.4 Metazoan meiofauna (Vanreusel, Macheriotou, Khodami, Raschka, Martinez Arbizu) .............................................................................................................................................. 74 7.2.6 Macrofauna (Kaiser, Menot, Błażewicz-Paszkowycz, Bonifacio, Neal, Schnurr, Wawrzyniak-Wydrowska) .................................................................................................... 76 Distribution of samples ..................................................................................................... 87 Distribution of samples ..................................................................................................... 88 7.2.6.1 Preliminary Results .................................................................................................. 89 7.2.7 Scavengers (Robert) .................................................................................................. 103 7.2.8 Kiel6000 ROV dives (Ribeiro, Hilário, Vanreusel, Menot and Martinez Arbizu) .... 104 7.2.8.2 Video transects ....................................................................................................... 112 7.2.8.3 Specimen collection ............................................................................................... 113 7.2.8.4 Push cores ............................................................................................................... 116 7.2.9 Megafauna collection (Hilário, Kersken, Ribeiro) .................................................... 123 7.2.9.1 Objectives ........................................................................................................... 123 7.2.9.2 Sample processing .............................................................................................. 124 7.2.9.3 Preliminary Results ................................................................................................ 126 7.2.10 AUV Image Management, Image Processing, Pattern Recognition & Mosaicking (Schoening) ........................................................................................................................ 129 7.2.11 Birds, turtles and mammals (Robert) ...................................................................... 141 7.2.12 Preliminary MAPR results (Greinert, Weiß, and Schoening) ................................. 143 7.2.13 Lander and thermistor mooring deployments in the German PA1 area (Greinert, de Stigter, van Haren, Weiß and Schoening) ........................................................................... 144 7.2.13.1 Deployments and sampling settings ................................................................. 144 7.2.13.2 Preliminary DOS lander results ........................................................................ 146 7.2.14. AUV Mission Summaries (Rothenbeck, Steinführer, Triebe, Wenzlaff) ............... 149 7.2.15 Impact of deep-sea mining on microbial food webs (Fioretti, Gambi, Dell’Anno and Danovaro) ..........................................................................................................................