PS96 - Capa Town to Punta Arenas

POLARSTERN will sail directly to the ice covered Atka Bay to supply the German Neumayer Station III. At Neumayer the seal-team (4 scientists) will join Polarstern for a couple of days and will be dropped off at the Drescher Inlet, where they will establish a 4-weeks camp. Polarstern will then proceed to its main scientific region, the vast shelf areas in front of the Filchner Ronne ice shelf. There, an extensive oceanographic and biological program will continue and complement the station grid, which already began in the course the FOS campaign (Filchner Outflow System) in 2013/2014 during the PS82 expedition (ANT XXIX/9). The region of the Filchner Trough is affected by the interaction of Ice Shelf Water (ISW) of the Filchner Ronne Ice Shelf with Warm Deep Water (WDW) of the Weddell Gyre. The region is one of the key areas for the renewal of the world deep oceans. The formation of deep and bottom water (WSDW/WSBW) in the southern Weddell Sea is strongly influenced by flow of Ice Shelf Water (ISW) from the Filchner-Ronne Ice cavity. Therefore, beginning with the summer season 2015/2016, an international drilling program through the 1000 m thick Filchner Ice Shelf will start, which allows oceanographic instruments to be deployed in these boreholes to send their data directly from the cavity via satellite for the next 5 years. This program is conducted by institutes from Great Britain, Norway and Germany and needs ship support at a depot on the Ronne Ice Shelf edge.

The biological investigations will include samples of different instruments. Distribution and biomass of pelagic fish fauna will be estimated by pelagic fishing trawls. Species distribution and biomass of benthic invertebrates and demersal fishes will be measured by video guided grab samples, multi- corer, Agassiz trawls, bottom trawls, and HD video and photo transects operated with a ROV-system (Remotely Operated Vehicle). Data on production rates of benthos and fishes will be estimated by standardized calculation methods supported by additional laboratory measurements and experiments on board and at the home laboratories.