Under the Sea: mud volcanoes bubbling up

In April 2022, the IONTU chemical oceanography graduate students had their first expedition to explore the offshore of the southwestern Taiwan. It's also MISO's first time on the R/V New Ocean Researcher 1 to collect samples for our research.

The sea was very kind to us. We didn't get seasick. Under the calm sea surface, the seafloor around this area is full of excitement. The seafloor is populated with cold seeps and mud volcanoes which are bubbling up with methane, a greenhouse gas. We collected seawater, suspended particle and sediment samples above these underwater mud volcanoes to catch their chemical signals. We hope to use barium isotopes to burst into more carbon stories under the bubbling seabed.

CTD rosette collects seawater samples.

Students are excited before boarding.

Multi-corers bring the mud from the deep. A moment to be remembered, the time first round with all 12 tubes recovered! Thanks to the great weather.

Pokai is working hard on filtering large volume seawater for suspended particles.

Beautiful sunset and shining sea.

The NOR1-028 scientist team. Thanks for everyone's hard work.