On Saturday the RRS Discovery left Southampton on the UKOSNAP expedition, which has been recovering a series of moorings this week that have been collecting data along the central Rockall Trough since July 2016. The moorings have a number of instruments and floats fastened to a long chain, which collect temperature, salinity and water velocity data throughout the water column. Given that this equipment had been in the water for the last ten months a number of marine organisms had colonised the floats, including cold-water corals (pictured above). Some of these organisms were sampled to investigate the abundance of microplastics ingested by species inhabiting the mid-waters in the North East Atlantic Ocean.
To read the expedition blog click here