2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting
Helen Smith
2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting
2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
I would like to thank the Challenger Society for a travel award enabling me to attend the 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii.
This conference was massive, an incredible gathering of minds circulating ideas, results and discussing the next steps in ocean science. The amount of information available was overwhelming, 3500 posters and 1500 talks all in one week, sifting through and picking the most relevant to my work was a difficult task. I generally focused on the topics of particle flux and phytoplankton. There was a particle flux workshop, which concluded that we still don’t know much about the mesopelagic processes but progress is being made. I attended a great plenary session on cephalopod work by Dr. Roger Hanlon from Woods Hole, which was not related to my work in any way but the videos of charismatic mega-fauna demonstrating 3D camouflage were fascinating.
My talk about coccolithophore and diatom distribution in the Great Calcite Belt, in the session ‘Small Bugs Big Impact’, was on the final day of the conference. It seemed to go well and I did get a couple of useful hints and tips afterwards.
I also managed to meet up with friends and collaborators from the Great Calcite Belt cruises. Alongside the social aspect it was great to talk to them face to face about the progression of work and discuss potential papers.
I enjoyed the meeting and its vast scope of science, thanks again to the Challenger Society for the travel award.
Helen Smith, NOC
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Potential Availability of NERC Ship Time During the 25/26 Programme Year
The NERC Marine Facilities Programme for 2025/2026 for the RRS Discovery and the RRS James Cook has been published on the Marine Facilities Planning website.
The RRS Discovery programme currently contains a 79 day alongside slot between the 2nd of November 2025 and the 19th of January 2026, which is available for science delivery if funded science projects can make use of this time. Due to the location of the vessel, the ship is most likely to be able to deliver fieldwork in the North and East Atlantic regions. Some support for science capability within the National Marine Equipment Pool is potentially available, although there is no capacity for use of autonomous vehicles or remotely operated vehicles. Any fieldwork within Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) will need the appropriate diplomatic clearance submitted to coastal states at least 6 months in advance, and to NMF with sufficient lead time for processing via the FCDO.
If interested in making use of this ship time, please contact NERC Marine Planning (marineplanning@nerc.ukri.org) ASAP to start discussions.
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NOC Association AGM 2025
NOC Association (NOCA) AGM 2025
The 14th AGM of the NOC Association will be held on Thursday 15th and Friday 16th May 2025. This free, on-line event will take place on Zoom, across two consecutive mornings, each starting at 10:00 and ending at 12:30. Although discussion topics are being finalised, we will focus on national capability (NC) science, ships, and autonomous vehicles, and how the community can engage. There will be an update on AtlantiS and on the new marine science scoping group. All are warmly welcome to join. To participate, please complete your registration here. For enquiries: Jackie Pearson, Secretary to NOCA: jfpea@noc.ac.uk