The last couple of days, we have been busy with seismic lines. This means that Oden is breaking ice in straight lines through heavy, massive ice with ridges while the Canadian icebreaker Louis S. St-Laurent is following and shooting off seismic signals. On board Oden, we have a seismic team scheduled 24 h to record the soundings of the seismic signals and the research group is also dropping sonobuoys in the water to record the signals. There are also more advanced ice stations that are flown out by helicopter some 20 M ahead of us, recording the signals and then recovered by another helicopter flight.

The seismic science project is part of the Canadian science-driven project connected to the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Part of the program is also the dredging project, where you litterally dredge the sea floor for stones and rocks. In order to be successful, detailed planning is required to get Oden drifting in the right angle upwards the targeted slope. By geological analyses, it is then possible to tell the origin and composition of the rocks that comes on board with the dredge. Besides the stone samples, we have also got side catches by the dredge – shrimp, mussels and sea anemones.

Sea anemones were attached to some of the stone samples that were dredged up from the sea floor at approximately 2,000 m depth. Foto: Åsa Lindgren

Some people might think it is monotonous to travel day after day with just sky and sea around. But every day, there are different shapes, forms, shades, light and patterns surrounding Oden. Foto: Åsa Lindgren