Voyage 3 Trip Reports
The first voyage of the Chatham-Challenger project was in August 2006 during which a series of multi-beam echo-sounder transects were completed across the Chatham Rise and Challenger Plateau. Based on the multi-beam results, two subsequent voyages were planned to collect information on the biodiversity and seafloor habitats of the Chatham Rise to the east and the Challenger Plateau to the west of New Zealand. The second voyage was completed in April 2007 and the present voyage is the third and last of the
series. Sampling on the Challenger Plateau is due to finish at the end of the first week in June at which point starts will be made to compare the biodiversity and habitats of the two regions.
Week 1: The Challenge of the Challenger
This trip, to the Challenger Plateau, takes us into an area named after the forerunner of all oceanography, namely the HMS Challenger expedition led by Captain John Murray.
Thay pioneering voyage of discovery involved a three-and-a-half year circumnavigation of the world from 1872-75, collecting all manner of creatures from previously untouched regions of the planet, including New Zealand. In some respects, the OS 2020 project is continuing on this tradition, by adding information to our knowledge of life on Earth by undertaking intensive sampling of the marine biodiversity in New Zealand’s EEZ, the fifth largest in the world.
Admittedly, we do have things a little easier than our scientific ancestors, several of whom on the Challenger expedition grew disillusioned with the thought of yet another sampling deployment in waters they didn’t know the depth of and either jumped ship or went mad!
Download Voyage 3 Trip Report 1 (PDF 391KB)
Week 2: The Beginning of the End
This final “weekly” report from the Chatham-Challenger Hydrographic, Biodiversity and Seabed Habitat project is actually written from the relative comfort of a land-based office, without the added bonus of the ship (and office) bouncing up and down on the waves.
Since we returned from Voyage 3 to the Challenger Plateau, there has been a flurry of activity with press releases made, voyage reports completed, samples archived and interest from overseas and New Zealand scientists in some of the more unusual findings from the voyage.
Download Voyage 2 Trip Report 2 (PDF 885KB)