At the end of December 2022, the NSFC Open Research Cruise in the central SCS (NORC2022-06) was conducted onboard RV TKK. Split into two cruise legs—the comprehensive biogeochemical leg and the geological and geophysical leg, this expedition mainly focused on marine geology, hydrodynamics processes, marine biogeochemical processes and their interactions with biodiversity, ocean-atmosphere, sediment-water interface processes, along with their environmental and climatic effects. Xin Liu and Yuan Shen from MEL served as chief scientist of each separate leg.
Collecting water samples. Photo: Yuyan Zhang
Collecting water samples. Photo: Yuan Shen
This cruise supported 33 NSFC-funded projects, and 61 scientists and researchers from 12 domestic institutions. There were 108 operations implemented at 38 stations on the ship during the cruise, including CTD casts, deployments of in situ LVPs, multiple net plankton sampler, gravity cores, box samplers, heat flow probes, benthic trawls, rock trawls and operations of the deep-sea remotely operated platform.
Deploying benthic trawls. Photo: Yuyan Zhang
Operations of the deep-sea remotely operated platform. Photo: Yuyan Zhang
RV TKK's marine technician supporting the operations of deep-sea remotely operated platform. Photo: Yuan Shen
