Momarsat 2024

The Momarsat cruise was held from August 4^th to August 24^th 2024 on the R/V L’Atalante with the ROV VIctor6000. The main objective of this series of cruises is the maintenance of the EMSO-Azores observatory. However, while taking care of the monitoring nodes once recovered on board, each cruise represents a great opportunity to pursue parallel scientific objectives and do experimentations on the seafloor. We had four objectives related to DEEP REST: (1) Continue to follow the recolonization experiment, part of William Johnson Da Silva thesis, (2) Sample fauna and gather imagery for the post-doc of Riwan Leroux on the evaluation of the impacts of long-term research activities on Lucky Strike vent field ecosystems, (3) Deploy the SPIDER experiment to evaluate the impacts of sulphide deposition on Bathymodiolus azoricus mussel communities (Figure 3), (4) Recover the experiment that was deployed last year to measure mussel growth rates. All objectives were fulfilled and the cruise was a real success.