The project HOPE continues to move forward with the 5th mission of 2024, carried out in November off the coast of New Caledonia.
During this mission, the team relieved, refitted and re-deployed the EXPORT-LINE, a 700 m long line anchored from the ocean floor to the surface. Instrumented with 32 sensors and collectors, it samples the marine snow at strategic depths every 2 days to quantify the carbon captured and understand the environmental conditions influencing this process. The operation was a success.
Anchored in the South Pacific since March 2024, the EXPORT-LINE, which is surveyed every three months, is a delicate operation carried out by a team of 9 researchers and engineers, as well as 13 sailors aboard the FOF M/O Antea. This series of campaigns is part of the ERC HOPE project on the role of diazotrophs in the biological carbon pump.
The EXPORT-LINE works in tandem with the HOPE'ORTUNITY intelligent buoy, which is equipped with automated systems that measure the physical and biological parameters of the surface ocean (0-100 m) every 4 hours, in particular the biodiversity of the plankton responsible for carbon sequestration.
The next 16-day mission will take place in February 2025, to survey the EXPORT-LINE and study very high-frequency processes at the HOPE'ORTUNITY buoy with our American and Pacific colleagues.
