Several regions of Lake Baikal were investigated during the TTR-BL19 offshore expedition. The selected survey areas included mud volcanoes, gas hydrate deposits, submarine slides, hydrate bearing and degassing tectonic structures, deep sea canyons and, oil seepages. Nearly 30 people took part to this marine expeditions, including scientific senior staff, students and ship’s crew from five different countries and institutes.
The students were trained to various activities beginning from the involvement in the phases of preparation for the cruise. During the expedition, they acquired skills on the acquisition of geophysical data using sub-bottom profiler as well as their interpretation in order to plan the strategy for further samplings. Seafloor sampling was conducted using various tools, coupled with under water video records. Petrography and geochemistry analyses of the collected samples and subsampling procedures were completed involving all the participants. The data collected are now being processed for further laboratory analyses in various Institutes and are used by students for their BSc, MSc and PhD projects.
Daily lectures were conducted on board fulfilling the goal of the "Floating University" paramount. These 14 presentations were organized to discuss data on subjects related to the cruise. More dedicated seminars focussed on settings similar to the one explored duringteh expedition, but located in different regions of the planet. During the cruise the participants collaborated for the dissemination of the results and life onboard completing a daily blog (both in Russian and English) that was constantly updated on the webpage: http://www.class-baikal.ru/
At the end of the expedition, the participants gathered for three days in a Irkustk Limnological Institute facility to re-organize the acquired data and to prepare a draft cruise report. The last day students had the opportunity to present the preliminary data and results along with the cruise report. Nearly 15 presentations took place during the workshop. Scientists from the Irkutsk Limnological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences attended the event to hear on the exciting findings. All the students and senior scientist contributed to the compilation of the cruise report including preliminary results as well as preliminary interpretation of the acquired data and plans for future in-house laboratories and analyses.
As a continuation of the didactic and scientific activities, a special session is dedicated at the MARESEDU-2019 conference to the presentation of the Class@Baikal-2019 expedition results including 2 posters and 7 oral talks prepared by the students joining the expedition. More information about the conference is provided in the links below: