K-lander recovery and water column survey offshore Svalbard and in the Barents Sea (20.1)

Introduction

The cruise was conducted from June 22nd to July 1th 2020 as part of the Centre of Excellence for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate (CAGE) at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. The main objective of the research cruise was to recover the K-lander that was deployed offshore Prins Karls Forland on an extensive methane seepage area. The sub-objective was to performed single and multibeam surveys around the lander in order to locate the origin of the signal seen in the collected data, and map the seepages to compare with our horizontally-looking multibeam mounted on the lander. In addition, we collected water from Niskin bottles during CTD casts to measure methane concentration in the water column along and across the lander. Other areas of interest were the “MASOX” site, and other sites where methane seepages are suspected