The expedition team poses aboard the research vessel Tan Kah Kee to mark the successful completion of the cruise. [Photo/en.xmu.edu.cn]
Xiamen University's (XMU) research vessel Tan Kah Kee returned to its home port in Xiamen on Sept 27, completing the CHINA GEOTRACES GP08 section cruise in the South China Sea after 24 days at sea.
The KK2610 cruise was organized by XMU's State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Science and led by chief scientist Cai Yihua. Its 36-member scientific team included researchers from XMU, Ocean University of China, and Zhejiang University. The vessel covered about 2,647 nautical miles.
The expedition was aimed at investigating the distribution and cycling of key trace elements, their isotopes, and nutrients in the South China Sea, including the sources and sinks of micronutrients and their links to carbon fixation.
The team completed operations at 15 stations, including 12 clean stations, two conventional stations, and one rinsing station. It conducted 65 conventional CTD casts and 34 trace-metal-clean CTD casts and deployed a microstructure turbulence profiler 53 times. Researchers also collected more than 1,000 samples for in situ biological incubation and nine aerosol samples.
The team also deployed and recovered a deep-sea in situ incubation system and an autonomous multiparameter profiling system for the upper ocean. The samples and data will support further research.
Launched in the early 2000s, GEOTRACES is an international program aimed at improving the understanding of biogeochemical cycles and the large-scale distribution of trace elements and their isotopes in the marine environment. About 35 countries have participated in the initiative. XMU scientists had previously led the GP09 cruise in the subtropical Northwest Pacific.
