Today is 27 of December, Friday
Ñàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðã +1°C
Ñàíêò-Ïåòåðáóðã +1°C
BFU Cruise 2006In summer, 2006 the Russian State Hydrometeorological University (RSHU) organized and carried out the 14th research cruise of the Baltic Floating University (BFU). It consisted of two stages – 1) onboard the research vessel and 2) onboard the sailing catamaran.1. BFU cruise and research was conducted onboard the Kaliningrad-based research vessel R/V “Professor Shtokman”, which belongs to the P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Science (IO RAS). Participants were professors and researchers from the Faculty of Oceanology of the RSHU; specialists from IO RAS; the State Company “SEVMORGEO”; Zoological Institute, RAS; Moscow-based Vernadsky Geological Museum and Moscow State University, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students from the RSHU Faculty of Oceanology, other Universities of Russia, Spain, Portugal, France and Guinea – Bissau. Besides the research cruise, the project activity also involved cultural and educational programs in St. Petersburg and the city of Kaliningrad. Complex research in the Baltic Proper, the Gulf of Finland and on the Kaliningrad Shelf was held from July 11 to July 27. The main research direction involved the assessment of conditions of the marine environment and biological communities, and the detection of environmentally vulnerable water areas. The cruise also provided new data for oceanographic databanks. The education and training tasks included: lectures and seminars on specific issues with the use of video and DVD materials; training students in acquiring research skills at sea and in data preprocessing; scientific guidance in the preparation by the students of presentations of the cruise preliminary results; international mid-cruise seminar, which took place at the Leibnitz Institute for the Baltic Sea Research (Warnemunde, Germany) on July 17. 2. The cruise of the sailing catamaran “Centaurus II” consisted of two stages: stage 1 – in the Vyborg Bay, and stage 2 - in the eastern Gulf of Finland (“Luga - Koporye region”). First stage of the cruise was in the Vyborg Bay and included ground-truth observations. Students from RSHU and Cadiz University also got experience in hydrochemical analysis of water samples. Second stage was held in Luga and Koporye Bights and consisted of: study of thermochaline structure and spatial distribution of the main characteristics of water masses (concentration of dissolved oxygen, pH, nutrients) through carrying out the multidisciplinary oceanographic survey on the standard network of the BFU stations with spatial resolution 2.5 miles and further estimation of inter-annual changes comparing new data with data obtained in 1993-2001; collecting samples of plankton, benthos and sediments; study of spatial distribution of hydrological and hydrochemical parameters in deepwater sections in the Eastern Baltic and the Western Gulf of Finland; taking water and sediments samples for analysis of oil hydrocarbons and heavy metals. According to the program of the field training all the students performed all kinds of the field work onboard the catamaran including measurements of oceanographic and meteorological characteristics, sampling, processing materials of observations. Seminars on main environmental problems of the Gulf of Finland took place onboard the catamaran. All students prepared original reports for these seminars based on the scientific results they had got during the practice. Three lectures were presented for students by Dr. Vitalij Sychev, Prof. Dr. Alexej Nekrasov (both from RSHU), and Prof. Dr. Sergej Golubkov (ZIN RAN).  Centaurus II cruise details Shtokman cruise detailsOther Cruises
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