The second of two voyages of the R/V Tangaroa to study the oceanography of the Macquarie Ridge. The voyage represented a collaboration between scientists and projects at NIWA and CSIRO Division of Marine and Atmospheric Research, the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACECRC), and the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University (ANU) in Australia, and the Geological Nuclear Sciences Institute (GNS) in New Zealand. Voyage objectives: 1. Retrieve moorings deployed in 2007 in the gaps in the Macquarie Ridge 2. Undertake a physical oceanographic survey of the Macquarie Ridge 3. Collect sediment cores along the axis of the Macquarie Ridge and in the Emerald Basin 4. Survey the biodiversity and habitat of seamounts associated with the Macquarie Ridge 5. Deploy Argo floats
This is the first of two cruises of the R/V Tangaroa to investigate the oceanography of the Macquarie Ridge system. Macquarie Ridge is situated to the southwest of New Zealand and runs from Fiordland to south of Macquarie Islands. The major objectives were to: 1. deploy moorings to measure the transport of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its associated fronts through the two gaps in the Macquarie Ridge; 2. measure ocean tracer properties along the Macquarie Ridge and Campbell Plateau. 3.5kHz soundings were collected for use in planning future coring operations