University of the sea

Davy Jones’ locker may also be home to a vital record of climate change, as 20 international students discovered on an epic ocean voyage.

Also in this story:
A student's perspective
Globalising science: new degree

A group of students in helmets watch with intense focus as a tube, metres long, is dragged from the water. Soon they will have access to the mud inside the tube, and the prospect of what they might divine from this grey sludge fills them with excitement.

But what kind of classroom is this, kilometres from land off the northern tip of Australia?

Between 24 June and 8 July this year, 20 students were taken on board the French vessel Marion Dufresne, one of the world’s largest and best-equipped research ships, to gain experience in mapping and sampling the sea floor.

By studying layers of sediment and the ocean floor between Port Moresby and Darwin, they hope to contribute to a better understanding of past climatic conditions in the region.

This was the first time the project, known as the University of the Sea, had been undertaken in the Southern Hemisphere.The project was organised by ANU geologist Professor Patrick De Deckker, with assistance from Professor Jock Keene from the University of Sydney.

“The concept of the University of the Sea is to bring together young marine scientists, train them in many aspects of marine science in the hope also that these people will maintain communication among themselves and thus build a network of future researchers and managers of the oceans in our region,” Profesor De Deckker says.

In this edited version of his web diary, Professor De Deckker paints a picture of life aboard the 59-cabin ship, where the students quickly became part of the action.

Day 1: Port Moresby

Most people spent time getting used to the motion of the ship this morning. Some of the students were very quiet, and there were a few grey faces to be seen. Everyone seemed to be smiling again by the afternoon.

We had some introductory talks, then a visit to the operation room – the ‘brain’ of the ship – where more than 30 computers continuously register data about the sea floor and water around us.

During these preliminaries, the scientific crew continued their tasks. We were awoken at 3am by noise from the ship’s rear, where a long sediment core was brought back on deck. Imagine a 50-metre long stainless steel pipe returning from a depth of 2000 metres, full of grey mud. Many on deck believe such cores hold a record of environmental change.

Day 2

The day started with a traditional French Sunday breakfast of pain au chocolat and strong coffee. Lectures followed on navigation, charts and descriptions of some of the navigation equipment.

Meanwhile, several cores were being processed. Once a core is taken, it is cut into 1.5 metre sections, which are labelled. Following that, each core is sliced along its centre. One half is wrapped with thick plastic, placed in a box, and then stored in a cold archive for future comparisons. The other half of the core is photographed and others measurements are taken to examine the composition of the layers of sediment.

The researchers dropped the corer in shallow water near the head of the Gulf of Papua – a place where the sea floor hadn’t been explored. The corer returned to the surface bent like a banana. It must have hit a hard layer, perhaps volcanic ash. It would take several hours to cut the bent parts of the corer and extract its contents.

The ship started moving towards its midnight destination further north in the Gulf of Papua.

Day 3

It was a little cooler today. The morning lecture dealt with sea floor mapping, and the nature of the ocean in the region.

From today, students will participate in the tedious tasks of opening, cutting and labelling cores, and putting loose material in plastic bags as either reference or teaching material.

Last night I witnessed the return of the large box core that had been used under 636 metres of water. It was quite a tricky exercise, as this corer weighs about 1,000kg when full. When this box is returned on deck, everybody has to be very careful. Helmets are obligatoire!

One of the excitements this morning was the opening of a long box corer that returned 8.5 metres of sediment. We examined the corer in some detail because there was evidence of an alternation of different types of sediments, ranging from almost black to grey, with some beige and pink-coloured layers near the top. We interpreted the dark layers to be rich in organic carbon, and the grey layers to be clay rich, with the clays obviously originating from the Fly River in Papua New Guinea

The upper part of the core was beige and represents very different conditions at sea. What can this tell us about the history of the climate and conditions in the Gulf of Papua? I am sure the answer will take well over a year, with much time spent in various laboratories to study the sediments in close detail.

Day 5

Last night proved to be very busy, with several cores being taken after midnight, including one that hit a lot of coral debris and, consequently, caused the core barrel to bend. This core was taken in very shallow water and it is of no surprise therefore to find that we hit an ancient reef system that must have formed when sea level was much lower compared to today.

Lectures began early, even though some students had worked night shifts. We also attended a talk by Stefan Rohte whose role it is to link all the data obtained during the cruise.

Day 6

We have spent a large portion of the day surveying the sea floor at shallow depths. Frequently, we observed that the floor of the ocean is characterised by a rough surface, which must have been exposed to the atmosphere when sea level had receded worldwide.

We passed over several ‘drowned’ reefs in the vicinity of Torres Strait. At 9pm local time, we lowered the box corer in the hope of collecting sediments and possibly fragments of dead corals, but the ocean floor was too hard.

Day 7

The ship stopped at 4am to pick up a pilot who helped guide us among the islands of the Torres Strait. We saw some islands this morning, and some people mentioned sighting a shipwreck.

We commenced the day with a lecture on corals and their use for reconstructing past environmental conditions. We also observed the topography of the sea floor with the seismic profiler to determine that in this narrow strait it is made of very coarse material, probably gravel or shell debris, as a result of strong bottom currents. A bit further west, the sea floor topography was characterised by huge sand ripples, again indicative of fast moving water at the bottom.

After lunch, Yvon Balut, the ship’s Operations Manager, took us on a tour from the bridge down to the kitchen. It was amazing to hear more about the technology that makes this ship one of the best of its kind in the world.

During the night we headed towards Gove, near the tip of the peninsula on the western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where 13 Taiwanese members of our group were to leave the ship. We made a quick turn and headed towards Merauke in Irian Jaya near the PNG border, where we are to pick up several Indonesian observers, before doing more coring in the Aru Sea tomorrow.

Day 9

We arrived at a rendezvous point at 7am some 12 nautical miles from Mirauke in Irian Jaya, where we had to meet a group of Indonesian observers who were to board the ship.

During most of the day and night we sailed over very shallow water where we could see evidence of ancient channels having been dug during periods of low sea level by rivers which must have travelled a long way to the edge of the much-exposed shelf. The latest channels would have been dug fewer than 15,000 years ago.

Day 10

This is the furthest north we will have travelled during this cruise. It is now 11pm and we are currently coring the sea floor in the middle of the Sea of Aru to the east of the island of Pu Pu Aru.

The water during most of the day has been very turbid, and must contain a lot of mud transported at sea from Irian Jayan rivers, yet we are still very far from land. The cores are returning very dark grey, sometimes black, mud interspersed by fine layers of coarser sandy material and shell debris.

Day 11

We stuck close to the Island of Aru where we have been coring under the eyes of three Indonesian observers.

At lunch, there was much excitement as a school of dolphins was seen at a distance, and we estimated well over 40 dolphins in this group who were jumping quite high. What a wonderful sight.

The computer lab and the other room reserved for the students to work were like bee hives with everyone preparing joint posters and individual reports. These will be displayed tomorrow and a committee will assess the best poster.

The cores, which we returned and opened on deck, contain much sand and shell debris, indicating strong currents along the bottom.

We are slowly heading towards Darwin but have yet to take a series of cores for our colleague Yusuke Yokoyama from the University of Tokyo. The first core was eventually taken late in the evening and a good 23m-long core was obtained in shallow water.

We eventually found a suitable site, but on our way witnessed some interesting features, like possibly drowned coral reefs or blocks that would have moved as a result of faulting.

Day 13

A core was taken early in the morning and there has been much of a rush during the rest of the day and evening trying to process the core before putting it into the cold container ready for transport to Japan.

Day 14 - Darwin

We arrived in Darwin early in the morning. It was amazing how we could smell land well before seeing it.

After a lengthy period clearing customs, we returned to the ship to meet local dignitaries and members of the media. The Ambassador of France personally congratulated all the students individually.

It was time to farewell one another, as some had to go to the airport that night, with others were leaving in the early hours of the morning. The University of the Sea for 2005 ended happily. It is likely that the Marion Dufresne will be in Australasian waters next year, so it is possible we can again train several more of the new generation of marine scientists from our region.

More: http://uos.anu.edu.au

A student's perspective

PhD candidate Rose Berdain from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences was one of the students who took part in the University of the Sea this year.

What are you studying in your PhD?

In a nutshell, my PhD research is about reconstructing climate in the past few thousands of years based on the geochemistry of coral skeletons. In particular, I would like to know how the frequency of ENSO (El Niño - Southern Oscillation) events varied through time at different climate backgrounds.

How will taking part in the University of the Sea assist you in your studies?

The UOS helped broaden my understanding of my field of study, which is paleoclimatology.

How do you rate the experience?

It was unique. It’s not everyday that I get to be on a great ship (the Marion Dufresne), with students, scientists and crew from at least 15 countries, learning (and doing) science. It was actually a cultural experience mixed with science. It was also an eye-opener for me. During the cruise, I had a taste of the difficulties and complexities of working in different territorial waters. The science is, I think, the easiest part of the work. What goes on in the background, such as getting permits and dealing with the politics that goes with it, is more difficult than the actual science. These things are not taught and experienced in classrooms (and are not written in publications!), but something with which a scientist has to learn to deal.

Would you recommend other people take part in the coming years?

Yes, I would, especially to those who are in the marine sciences or are interested in pursuing studies in the marine sciences. It is a great opportunity to learn about the different disciplines in the field through the lectures and presentations, to interact and work with scientists on board, and to be familiar with the different equipment and facilities used in research.

Globalising science: New degree

The combination of exposure to the core sciences and science in practice will be a more permanent feature in the ANU curriculum thanks to an elite new degree — the Bachelor of Global and Ocean Sciences.

Building on initiatives like the University of the Sea, the Faculty of Science will offer the new four-year, research-led degree in 2006.

It will focus on the global community and integrating science into related and relevant fields, such as alternative and renewable energy, environmental policy, political sciences, science law, international relations and forecasting.

With an automatic honours component, the degree will train the next generation of ocean scientists by linking the study of oceans, climate, earth science and ecology.

The student cohort will be kept small and specifically designed to foster teamwork, interaction and communication.

Back to top

Back to Reporter home