Compte Rendu du SEZAM’inaire de Gabriel Moizinho

The AMANAUS cruise in Eastern Amazonia

In this presentation, Gabriel MOIZINHO, PhD student at IFREMER – Paul Sabatier Toulouse III University shared to us about his experience during the AMANAUS cruise, a collaboration between Brazilian and French institutions. This mission was directly related to his PhD subject which has the aim to get a better understanding of source-to-sink transport of sediments and their evolution through time with the influence of climate, sea-level and tectonic changes.

This mission was quite unconventional compared to what scientists are used to since they did not use a research vessel. Instead, they had to rent a local wood boat used for everyday transportation on the Amazon River. As you can imagine, adapting the boat to host the all the equipment was a real challenge.

Multibeam bathymetry, Sparker (Very high seismic resolution) and Ronanberg coring system were deployed for this mission. The conditions are totally different in fresh water than in the ocean (See pictures below).