Northeast Atlantic 2004 – Cruise No. M61, April 19 – June 6, 2004 – Lisbon (Portugal) – Ponta Delgada (Azores)

• Main Authors: Hebbeln, Dierk, Pfannkuche, Olaf, Reston, Tim, Ratmeyer, Volker
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: DFG-Senatskommission für Ozeanographie 2006
• Subjects: Porcupine Seabight; Rockall Bank; Northeast Atlantic
• Online Access: https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/44474/; https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/44474/1/M61%20cruise%20report.pdf; https://doi.org/10.2312/cr_m61

R/V METEOR Cruise No. 61 was divided into three different legs, which all focused on the NEAtlantic to the west of Ireland from the Porcupine Seabight towards the Rockall Bank. Legs 1 and 3 concentrated on geo-biological studies on the carbonate mounds in this region, which are covered by a unique cold water coral fauna. Leg 2 dealt with seismic investigations in order to investigate the extension processes that led to the development of the Porcupine rift basin. The foci of the individual legs were on the following themes. M61-1 was a multidisciplinary cruise addressing biological, paleo-geological and hydrographical scientific objectives in the carbonate mound provinces west of Ireland in the eastern Porcupine Seabight and on the Rockall Bank. The cruise started in Lisbon (Portugal) and ended in Cork (Ireland). M61-1 activities were embedded within the ESF-DFG MOUNDFORCE project of the EUROMARGINS Programme. Together with the succeeding M61-3 cruise, these Meteor activities document Germany´s strong scientific and logistic support for the success of this challenging programme. Investigations are also designed as a preparatory cruise for the EUproject HERMES (Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Margins of European Seas; start April 2005). All institutions participating in M61-1 are partners in HERMES Work package 2 "Coral Reef and Carbonate Mound Systems". M 61-2 was directed at researching the earth's crust in the vicinity of the Porcupine rift basin. During this leg, seismic research has been undertaken in the Porcupine Basin west of Ireland, an area that represents a natural laboratory for the investigation of extensional processes. Firstly, both sides of a rift basin occurring in close proximity to each other could have been studied here, allowing questions about the symmetry of extension to be addressed by several east-west profiles parallel to the direction of extension. Secondly, the amount of extension increases from north to south, so a series of east-west cross sections on different latitudes has ...