The WACS cruise: study of cold-seep ecosystems in the deep sea
From 27 January to 28 February, the WACS research cruise will be conducted in the waters of the Gulf of Guinea off Congo, Gabon and Angola aboard the research vessel Pourquoi pas? with the remotely operated vehicle Victor 6000.
Led by Karine Olu-Le Roy, expert in deep-sea ecosystems at Ifremer, the WACS cruise aims primarily to study the functioning and diversity of cold-seep ecosystems in some active seep areas on the Congo-Angolan continental margin. The international scientific party also plans to describe the ecosystems associated with other deep-sea environments, in view of the exceptional terrestrial input they receive from the Congo River.
The cruise will also compare two cold-seep sites — one in the Gulf of Guinea and the other in the Gulf of Mexico — that have similar fauna. Recently visited by an American-led research cruise with the manned submersible Alvin, the Gulf of Mexico site was affected by an unprecedented ecological catastrophe last year.
The WACS cruise has been undertaken as part of the ANR project DEEP-OASES (GDR Ecchis) and in collaboration with European and American teams (Marum, University of Bremen and University of Pennsylvania).
The cruise log can be viewed on Ifremer’s web portal: http://wwz.ifremer.fr/institut/Decouvrir-les-oceans/Explorer/Campagne-WACS-2011
Full press release (in French):