TT 01/2008 - ROV Jason cruise tn228: South and East of Tasmania

The collaborative voyage, on RV Thomas G Thompson, including US and Australian researchers was led by chief scientists Dr Jess Adkins from the California Institute of Technology and Dr Ron Thresher from CSIRO's Climate Adaptation and Wealth from Oceans Flagships. This voyage follows up on work done on RV Southern Surveyor during SS 01/2008. The survey deployed the ROV Jason in the Huon and Tasman Fracture Commonwealth Marine Reserve, south-west of Tasmania, It also sampled areas of the Cascade Seamount and seamounts off the coast at St Helens (Tas). The focus of the survey was collection of fossil corals (Desmophyllum sp.), description of habitats at depth between 700 and 4000 m depth and establishing two long-term monitoring sites in the Huon CMR (settlement plates). It explored and sampled on the near vertical slice in the earth's crust, known as the Tasman Fracture Zone, which drops from approximately 2000 metres to over 4000 metres. Jason was used to collect video, high definition still images (mosaiced images) and selective samples of fossil corals and invertebrate fauna.