Indian GEOTRACES Cruise in the Arabian Sea

Indian GEOTRACES cruise sailed from Cochin on April 26, 2012 onboard FORV Sagar Sampada in the Arabian Sea. This cruise was planned to follow GI02 track along 65° E, however, due to security threat from pirates, it will follow 68° E from 1° N to 21° N. We plan to collect samples from water column at every 2° latitude interval. The cruise track and planned sampling stations are shown in Fig. 1. The cruise will arrive at Goa on May 18, 2012.

Basic objectives of this cruise are:

(i) to determine full depth distribution of some of the trace elements which are not prone to contaminations without clean sampling system such as U, Mo, Re,
(ii) online measurement of chemical constituents of the ambient aerosol and collecting aerosol samples to determine their sources using isotopes,
(iii) collecting water samples for measuring Nd, Th, Hf, Ra and stable isotopes.

PI: Ravi Bhushan. 

Figure 1: Planned cruise track.