Tuesday 15th February
Today's contributor: Jon Copley
Last night's work turned up some interesting-smelling sediment cores, and possible bubble signals from the echosounder survey. So today we launched SHRIMP on two dives to investigate further.
We spent several hours examining the seafloor in two areas at a depth of around 250 metres. During the dives, we saw lots of mud, Scotia Sea icefish, and marbled rock cod - but no signs of methane bubbling from the seafloor, or any microbial mats or animals associated with methane seepage.
SHRIMP returns from its final deployment of the expedition
With SHRIMP back aboard, our science operations are largely complete (apart from filling in a few gaps in the map of the seafloor on the way back to Chile). So a short celebration was in order - particularly as today is also Shackleton's birthday - as we left South Georgia to start our journey back to Punta Arenas.