Ulsfjorden field campaign was the first leg of the AREX2014 (r/v Oceania) cruise that focused on collecting materials for DWARF. Samples of marine plankton and benthos (WP 3, WP4 and WP5) were collected together with the background environmental info as CTD measuremnets and sediement samples for geochemical analyses. The whole leg lasted only three days. The weather conditions at sea demanded some changes in the original plan, but finally we were able to complete all the sampling tasks including dredging, bottom sampling (benthos and sediments), plankton sampling and environmental data collecting. The sampling took place at 2 transects ( each composed of stations at 50m, 100m and 150m depth) for dredging and 5 stations for pelagial and soft-bottom benthic survey.

Sampling stations in Ullsfjorden

DWARF participants of the West Spitsbergen cruise: Piotr Kuklinski (chief scientist; hard bottom benthos), Maria Włodarska-Kowalczuk (project leader; benthos), Łukasz Hoppe (LOPC), Mikołaj Mazurkiewicz (benthos), supported by hydrologists - Dorota Gutowska and Piotr Markuszewski and scientific equipment specialists - Roman Grzybowski and Roman Obuchowski