Beschreibung: ALKOR cruise AL548 took place as part of the EMFF (European Maritime and Fisheries Fund)-funded project BASTA (Boost Applied munition detection through Smart data inTegration and AI workflows; https://www.basta-munition.eu) and as continuation of the munition monitoring started within the BMBF-funded project UDEMM (Environmental Monitoring for the Delaboration of Munition in the Sea; https://udemm.geomar.de/). In October 2018, a first cruise (POS530 MineMoni2018) was conducted, to gather data for a broad baseline study in the German Baltic Sea. Results show a moderate contamination level on regional and coastal scale, but indicate higher levels for specific local areas. Within UDEMM, expertise was developed to detect, exactly locate and monitor munition (e.g. torpedoes, sea mines, ground mines) on the seafloor using optical and hydroacoustic means. In addition, chemical analyses of dissolved contaminants in the water and sediments was performed. Data acquired during this cruise are used in BASTA, which aims for enhanced munition detection via AUV-based artificial intelligence applied on multi-sensor datasets. At the same time, the project ExPloTect (Ex-situ, near-real-time exPlosive compound deTection in seawater) (also EMFF-funded) addresses the need for an innovative approach to detect explosive compounds in seawater. A prototype system was used and successfully tested for the first time during this cruise. The main focus was placed onto the two already known dumpsites Kolberger Heide and Lübeck Bight. Additionally, new areas Falshöft (Schleswig-Holstein) and Cadet Channel, Trollegrund and Großklützhöved (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) were explored. In each area high-resolution multibeam mapping was performed and contact lists, indicating potential munition objects were produced on board. AUV surveys were conducted to ground-truth possible contacts via detailed photograph and magnetometer mapping. This was complemented with towed video (TV)-CTD profiles. The transits to and between those sites were planned along former constraint routes during WWII. These routes were main targets of the British Air Force and mines and bombs can be expected along these ways. During transits water samples were taken with on a CTD- (conductivity, temperature, depth) rosette-mounted Niskin bottles in regular distances, in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding munition compounds (inter alia trinitrotoluene (TNT)) measurements across the German Baltic Sea.

Beschreibung: This study applies three classification methods exploiting the angular dependence of acoustic seafloor backscatter along with high resolution sub-bottom profiling for seafloor sediment characterization in the Eckernförde Bay, Baltic Sea Germany. This area is well suited for acoustic backscatter studies due to its shallowness, its smooth bathymetry and the presence of a wide range of sediment types. Backscatter data were acquired using a Seabeam1180 (180 kHz) multibeam echosounder and sub-bottom profiler data were recorded using a SES-2000 parametric sonar transmitting 6 and 12 kHz. The high density of seafloor soundings allowed extracting backscatter layers for five beam angles over a large part of the surveyed area. A Bayesian probability method was employed for sediment classification based on the backscatter variability at a single incidence angle, whereas Maximum Likelihood Classification (MLC) and Principal Components Analysis (PCA) were applied to the multi-angle layers. The Bayesian approach was used for identifying the optimum number of acoustic classes because cluster validation is carried out prior to class assignment and class outputs are ordinal categorical values. The method is based on the principle that backscatter values from a single incidence angle express a normal distribution for a particular sediment type. The resulting Bayesian classes were well correlated to median grain sizes and the percentage of coarse material. The MLC method uses angular response information from five layers of training areas extracted from the Bayesian classification map. The subsequent PCA analysis is based on the transformation of these five layers into two principal components that comprise most of the data variability. These principal components were clustered in five classes after running an external cluster validation test. In general both methods MLC and PCA, separated the various sediment types effectively, showing good agreement (kappa 〉0.7) with the Bayesian approach which also correlates well with ground truth data (r2 〉 0.7). In addition, sub-bottom data were used in conjunction with the Bayesian classification results to characterize acoustic classes with respect to their geological and stratigraphic interpretation. The joined interpretation of seafloor and sub-seafloor data sets proved to be an efficient approach for a better understanding of seafloor backscatter patchiness and to discriminate acoustically similar classes in different geological/bathymetric settings.

Beschreibung: Seafloor elongated depressions are indicators of gas seepage or slope instability. Here we report a sequence of slope-parallel elongated depressions that link to headwalls of sediment slides on upper slope. The depressions of about 250 m in width and several kilometers in length are areas of focused gas discharge indicated by bubble-release into the water column and methane enriched pore waters. Sparker seismic profiles running perpendicular and parallel to the coast, show gas migration pathways and trapped gas underneath these depressions with bright spots and seismic blanking. The data indicate that upward gas migration is the initial reason for fracturing sedimentary layers. In the top sediment where two young stages of landslides can be detected, the slope-parallel sediment weakening lengthens and deepens the surficial fractures, creating the elongated depressions in the seafloor supported by sediment erosion due to slope-parallel water currents.

Beschreibung: The current topographic maps of the Rhone Delta—and of Lake Geneva in general—are mainly based on hydrographic data that were acquired during the time of F.-A. Forel at the end of the nineteenth century. In this paper we present results of a new bathymetric survey, based on single- and multi-beam echosounder data. The new data, presented as a digital terrain model, show a well-structured lake bottom morphology, reflecting depositional and erosional processes that shape the lake floor. As a major geomorphologic element, the sub-aquatic Rhone Delta extends from the coastal platform to the depositional fans of the central plain of the lake at 310 m depth. 9 canyons cut the platform edge of the delta. These are sinuous (“meandering”) channels formed by erosional and depositional processes, as indicated by the steep erosional canyon walls and the depositional levees on the canyon shoulders. Ripples or dune-like morphologies wrinkle the canyon bottoms and some slope areas. Subaquatic mass movements are apparently missing on the delta and are of minor importance on the lateral lake slopes. Morphologies of the underlying bedrock and small local river deltas are located along the lateral slopes of Lake Geneva. Based on historical maps, the recent history of the Rhone River connection to the sub-aquatic delta and the canyons is reconstructed. The transition from three to two river branches dates to 1830–1840, when the river branch to the Le Bouveret lake bay was cut. The transition from two to one river branch corresponds to the achievement of the correction and dam construction work on the modern Rhone River channel between 1870 and 1880.

Beschreibung: Hydroacoustic methods are particularly suitable for investigations of the occurrence, cyclicity and amount of bubbles released at cold seeps without disturbing them. Experiments with a horizontally looking single beam transducer (40 and 300 kHz) directed towards artificially produced bubbles show that the backscattering strength of the bubbles increases with the gas flux rate independently of the bubble radii distribution. It is demonstrated that an acoustic system can be calibrated in such a way that gas flux rates of bubble-size spectra, as observed at natural seeps, can be directly related to the echo level of a known, acoustically insonified volume. No system-specific parameters have to be known except the beam width.

Beschreibung: Methane seepage leads to Mg-calcite and aragonite precipitation at a depth of 4,850 m on the Aleutian accretionary margin. Stromatolitic and oncoid growth structures imply encrustation of microorganisms (microbial mats) in the host sediment with a unique growth direction downward into the sediment, forming crust-shaped lithologies. Biomarker investigations of the residue after carbonate dissolution show strong enrichments in crocetane and archaeol, which contain extremely low δ13C values. This indicates the presence of methane-consuming archaea, and δ13C values of –42 to –51‰ PDB indicate that methane is the carbon source for the carbonate crusts. Thus, it appears that stromatolitic encrustations of methanotrophic anaerobic archaea probably occurs in a consortium with sulphate-reducing bacteria and that carbonate precipitation proceeds downward into the sediment, where ascending cold fluids provide a methane source. Strontium and oxygen isotope analyses as well as 14C ages of the carbonates suggest that the fluids come from deep within the sediment and that carbonate precipitation began about 3,000 years ago.

Beschreibung: Results of the analysis of mineralogy, geochemistry, and isotope parameters (δ13C, δ34S, δ18O, and 87Sr/86Sr) of carbonates and barites from sediments of the Deryugin Basin in the Sea of Okhotsk are presented. The diagenetic nature of carbonates and barites, which are formed as a result of the prolonged activity of cold seeps acting along a fracture zone and supplying methane–and barium-saturated fluids, is determined. Any signs for hydrothermal activity were not observed.

Beschreibung: The chemical composition (alkalinity, pH, NH4+, PO43-, Si, H2S, Cl-, Ca2+,and SO42-) of interstitial water was studied in the sediments of the Sea of Okhotsk at sites of methane emission. Variations in alkalinity were observed in the sediments from a typical seawater value (2.3 mM/kg) to 63 mM/kg. It is demonstrated that they are caused by the processes of sulfate reduction and methane generation. Based on the balance relationships, an equationwas constructed connecting changes in alkalinity with variations of Ca2+, SO42- and NH4+ in interstitial solutions.

Beschreibung: Filament intrusions are observed in high-resolution temperature (T) measurements from a 100-m and several month-long mooring in the Fram Strait in around 400-m water depth at the continental slope West of Svalbard (Spitsbergen, Norway). In this dynamic environment, a wide variety of intrusive layers are observed with thicknesses between 5 and 80 m with warmer water between cooler waters above and below. The layers typically last from several hours up to 1 day, exceeding the local buoyancy period but not lasting as long as intrusive layers in the open ocean. The intrusions are a result of an intermingling of Arctic and North-Atlantic waters and generated in the basins interior and locally via internal wave steepening upon the sloping bottom. Freely propagating semidiurnal lunar internal tides cannot exist without background vorticity at these high latitudes. Strongly nonlinear turbulent bores are not observed at the tidal periodicity, but wave fronts occur at the sub-inertial frequency of dominant baroclinic instability. The fronts are in part associated with near-buoyancy frequency internal waves (breaking). The details of the moored T observations and their spectral content demonstrate the non-smooth, relatively turbulent development including convective overturning and shear-induced instabilities when intrusions disperse in presumably salinity-compensated isopycnal layers.