Oceanography and geodynamics in the NW Atlantic and the Baffin Bay - Cruise No. MSM09 - July 23 - October 29, 2008 - Bremen (Germany) - Ponta Delgada (Azores) (English)

The Maria S. Merian Cruise MSM09 comprised three legs spanning over 91 days at sea, carrying out research in the western North Atlantic, the Labrador Sea and the Baffin Bay. The multidisciplinary programme of the cruise has been shared among six research groups, which collected data and material to study physical oceanography of the region, paleoclimatology, plankton ecology and the development of the oceanic basin between Greenland and Canada. The first leg (MSM09/1) investigated the North Atlantic subpolar gyre, a key region for water mass transformation in the North Atlantic. The objective was to collect measurements to constrain the transport variability in the gyre and to characterise water mass variability and transformation in the Newfoundland basin. Complementary oceanographic observations were obtained during the first half of the second leg (MSM09/2) for the Labrador Sea, including convection activity and variability of the boundary current. With the ultimate aim to improve our ability to interpret paleoenvironmental conditions in glacial high-latitude oceans, the biological and paleoceanographical investigations during the second half of leg MSM09/2 were focused on the characterization of the habitat of planktonic and benthic foraminifera and its relationship to ambient hydrological parameters, and the way the ecological signal is transferred and preserved in the sedimentary record. Deep crustal seismic profiles, accompanied by magnetic and gravity surveys and heat-flow measurements have been conducted during the third leg (MSM09/3) in order to investigate the extension and subsidence of the continental and transitional crust in the Davis Strait and the evolution of oceanic crust in the Labrador Sea and Baffin Bay. These data will provide the basis for palaeobathymetric reconstructions which will describe the break-up and the ocean basin evolution between Greenland and Canada and which will be used for palaeoceanographic modelling.