CRUISE SUMMARY

ORV Sagar Kanya sailed off from Mormugao port on 3 February, 1995 and arrived back in the same port on 4 March 1995. The cruise was organised under the Joint Global Ocean Flux Studies. In all 27 participants from NIO, PRL,and NCL took part. One of the main objectives was to study the winter cooling effect in the North Arabian Sea and how it affects the physical, chemical and biological processes.

Four open stations along 64⁰E and 3 stations along the shelf off the west coast of India were occupied. In addition, 36 CTD stations were also occupied.

The preliminary results showed signatures of intense winter cooling in the Northern Arabian sea and this was found to enhance nutrient injection into the surface layers and thereby influencing the productivity. High concentrations of nitrite and nitrate at surface in the north east and the central Arabian Sea were observed. The zooplankton biomass remained very low all along the coastal areas.

Surface meteorological observations were made at every 6 hourly intervals. Multisediment traps and single cylindrical traps were used for collection of downward settling particlulate matter in the oceanic water column. The traps were deployed for 4 days at two locations in the northern and central Arabian Sea. A total of 32 stations were studied for distribution of chemical properties. Air samples for N₂O and CH₄ were collected in 50 ml plastic syringes. Vertical profiles of sea water were collected at several stations. A total of 120 water samples were collected from all the JGOFS stations for microbiologcal studies.

PARTICIPANTS

Scientific Component

M. Madhupratap              Chief Scientist   NIO, Goa
P.M.A. Bhattathiri          NIO, Goa
S. Raghukumar               NIO, Goa
R. Mohanraju                NIO, Goa
Surekha Sawant              NIO, Goa
Mangesh Gauns               NIO, Goa
M. Dilip Kumar              NIO, Goa
Sugandha Sardesai           NIO, Goa
V.V.S.S. Sharma             NIO, Goa
S. Prasanna Kumar           NIO, Goa
A. Almedia                  NIO, Goa
M.T. Babu                   NIO, Goa
V. Ramaswamy                NIO, Goa
B. Vijayakumar              NIO, Goa
V. Fernando                 NIO, Goa
A.S. Muralinath             NIO, Goa
T. Suresh                   NIO, Goa
Elgar Desa                  NIO, Goa
Ganesh Chandawala           NIO, Goa
K.K.C. Nair                 NIO, Goa
Aditi Pant                  NCL, Pune
M.M. Sarin                  NCL, Pune
R. Rangarajan               NCL, Pune
P.K. Patra                  NCL, Pune
T.K. Sunil                  PRL, Ahmedabad
S. Venkataramani            PRL, Ahmedabad
Manish Dixit                PRL, Ahmedabad