News from the Pelagia

The brown macroalgal genus Sargassum, the namesake of the Sargasso Sea, is an essential habitat and refuge for many organisms including endemic species. Historically, this so-called 'golden rainforest of the Atlantic Ocean' was constrained to the…

The biologically productive North Sea impacts the global climate through exchange of carbon and nutrients with the Atlantic Ocean. The North Sea is a very productive coastal sea. A lot of carbon dioxide (CO2) can be taken up through physical,…

After several years of preparation, a team of NIOZ-NMF constructed a large mooring array in the harbor of La Seyne-sur-mer (Toulon, France) in 8 days of October 2020. The compacted array of 45 instrumented lines mounted on a steel cable grid inside a…

Between the 4th and 23rd of January, a team of scientists are on board the RV Pelagia to collect a second set of data and samples for the SEALINK project. This is a large, interdisciplinary project running from 2021 to 2025 in which Dutch and…

Ocean plastic debris has been recognised as a severe environmental problem in the ocean but we are only beginning to understand the role of particles

From November 2023 to February 2024, we will join the international EASI-2 research expedition to East Antarctica with 4 Dutch scientists: Rob Middag, Wytze Lenstra, Florine Kooij and Robin van Dijk. Our goal is to study bio-essential trace metals:…

Methane escapes from the seabed of the North Sea in various places. Recent German research suggested that this mainly occurs in the vicinity of abandoned wells. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and its release into the sea and subsequent release…

During the 'Sublife'-expedition we investigate if animals can live in the cracks of the ocean crust. And if animals living around hydrothermal vents use those cracks for their dispersal. This research will transform our understanding of ecology and…