Deployment of arcFOCE at HAUSGARTEN observatory

The arcFOCE experimental setup (arctic Free Ocean Carbon Enrichment ) will be deployed at the LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) observatory HAUSGARTEN during the RV Maria S. Merian expedition MSM77 (15.09. - 13.10.2018; Longyearbyen - Edinburgh). It is planned to initially install the system at the seafloor, recover it after a few days and then re-deploy it for a one-year deployment, if all sub-units of the system appear to work properly. Deployment depth will be at 1500 - 1800 m water depth on the Vestnesa Ridge off Svalbard. This water depth was chosen for the first long-term test, because in 2019, AWI will have access to the Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) PHOCA (Geomar, Germany), which has a max. diving depth of approx. 2000 m (because of the current length of the deep-sea cable), and which is needed to sample the experiment. Further deployments within and after the duration of the INTAROS project are also planned for deeper waters and different regions within Fram Strait.