RV MARIA S. MERIAN – MSM142
26.03.2026 – 11.05.2026
Nuuk (Greenland) – Reykjavik (Iceland)
3rd Weekly Report (06.04.2026 – 12.04.2026)
We are now in our third week at sea on board the RV MARIA S. MERIAN as part of Expedition MSM142. Weather conditions have steadily improved over the past week, allowing us to make consistent progress with our planned operations. I would like to thank the ship’s crew, as well as the technical and scientific teams, for their dedication and commitment. Their teamwork has been outstanding, particularly during long hours on deck under cold and often icy conditions, despite occasional glimpses of sunshine.
We have successfully recovered the 3.7 km-long K1 mooring, located in the central Labrador Sea and designed to monitor variability in deep convection. This mooring was equipped with a telemetry system which, for the first time, functioned successfully throughout the entire deployment period despite the region’s harsh winter conditions. The uppermost four instruments transmitted real-time observations of temperature and salinity within the upper 100 m. Following recovery, instrument checks and data downloads have been carried out, and redeployment is planned for the coming week.
We then steamed towards the 53°N Observatory, where GEOMAR maintains a mooring array of seven moorings, which has been in operation since 1997 and was most recently serviced in June 2024. To date, we have successfully recovered five of these moorings and redeployed three. The recovery and redeployment of the most inshore mooring was particularly noteworthy due to the prevailing sea ice conditions at this time of year. We had to wait for a suitable window, and the bridge team timed the operation perfectly to avoid any interference from drifting ice.
In a remarkable effort, three moorings were deployed within a single day, made possible by the dedication and coordination of everyone on board. Of the six moorings recovered over the past week, all instruments achieved a 100% data return. I would also like to thank the technical team for their excellent work in preparing and deploying the instruments during the previous servicing.
Although the weather was generally good, there were moments when strong winds picked up and the ship became quite lively, rolling noticeable as we continued our work. Fortunately, everything was always securely lashed down, so no equipment or instruments were at risk of moving.
At the same time, we are monitoring the glider fleet deployed in the region of an anticyclonic eddy off the west coast of Greenland. Over the past week, the gliders have provided us with significant insights – through coordinated measurements – into the dynamic structures along the four boundaries of the eddy (north, east, south and west), as well as the evolution of the eddy as a whole. Based on these findings, we can now shift to a more focused, small-scale sampling strategy, in which the gliders operate in parallel along the most active boundary of the eddy in order to resolve and better understand its structure and dynamics in greater detail.
We are currently continuing our work at the 53°N Observatory and, depending on weather conditions, plan to redeploy the K1 mooring and recover the gliders within the next one to two weeks. In addition, we will carry out further CTD stations to obtain a comprehensive view of the water column across the Labrador Sea, from the west Greenland shelf to the Canadian margin.
On behalf of all participants of RV MARIA S. MERIAN, best regards.
Fehmi Dilmahamod
Chief-scientist MSM142
GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel