AKMA Project

“ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE OF METHANE IN THE ARCTIC”

The Akma project is an expedition on the vessel RV Kronprins Håkon in the Barent Sea.

The project is a collaboration between researchers and scientists working at CAGE, The Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Environment and Climate, which is based at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø and WHOI Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution based in USA

The primary goal is to develop a long term multidisciplinary education about methane activity in the seabed, on the seafloor in the Arctic.

Videos — AKMA (akma-project.com)

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HOW TO PLAN A RESEARCH CRUISE
Planning a research cruise is quite an intense activity and can start as early as a couple of years before the cruise itself.
First part is the scientists who come up with an idea and they can take few years to get a grant to get to their goal.
Then their scientific requirements are translated into how the vessel and the crew deliver them with better technology in the ship itself.
It involves an ARMY of people to do it.
The end of a cruise is very much the reverse of what happened at the beginning of the cruise: the ship will be unloaded of all the equipment.
But the key part is unloaded the results, the digital data have been collected and stored in the ship and also physical samples are unloaded.

During a cruise the ship runs 24 hours a day: science never sleeps and the operations continue around the clock.

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THE TEAM
The senior project manager.
The head of the sea system.
The crew: the head chef; the chef; the cabin officer; the sailors and seamen; the stewards; three deck officers.
The scientists:phd students; post docs.
The chemistry crew.
The engineers.
The captain of the vessel.

RESEARCH VESSEL

KRONPRINS HAAKON
The R.V. Kronprins Haakon was explicitly built for operating in challenging Arctic conditions - it is capable of breaking the ice up to one metre thick - enabling this research vessel to explore further northwards than any other Norwegian research vessel. It has been extensively outfitted to accommodate various scientific pursuits in oceanography, marine biology and geology, with 15 fixed laboratories, refrigerated storerooms, large working desks, a moon pool for sampling and AUV/ROV operations. It is also equipped with acoustic instrumentation in two drop keels.

The vessel is equipped with state-of-the-art scientific instrumentation. It is capable of year-round operation in ice-covered waters, where it will monitor the environmental state and the climate state of both the Arctic and the Antarctic. The vessel is based in Tromsø and is officially owned by the Norwegian Polar Institute, run and maintained by the Institute of Marine Research, and largely used by UiT.

ROV -REMOTED OPERATED VEHICLE-

Underwater robots especially Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) are designed to perform different tasks in extreme conditions in depth of oceans all over the world. The utilization of such robotic vehicles has gained an increasing importance in many marine activities. As the importance and the complexity of the tasks performed by ROV increase, the need for automatic control schemes that guarantee high performances in motion and positioning has become a basic issue in underwater automation.