The expedition will take place in the summer

Exeter alumni join Arctic expedition

A group of Exeter alumni are organising an Arctic expedition in collaboration with fellow scientists, students and artists from the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus and Falmouth University.

The group, ‘Sail Against Plastic’, will be sailing in the Arctic waters around Svalbard between 23 June and 5 July 2018 collecting data for environmental studies.

The trip will be focused on three key areas: marine noise pollution, distribution of microplastics and ocean acidification.

Flora Rendell-Bhatti (Zoology, 2017) said: “We chose to study the Arctic waters around Svalbard, due to the fast changes happening there already (‘Atlantification') and its remoteness.

“The Arctic Sea’s around Svalbard are also suggested to be the ‘dead-end’ for plastics, with the Greenland and Barents seas being polluted by a conveyor belt of debris from garbage patches in the North Atlantic.” 

The team will be travelling in a 33m tall-ship in order to take unique samples of marine noise and travel with less disturbance on the environment. Along with collecting research data they also hope to increase public awareness through documenting their findings in engaging film and photographs.

Other alumni involved in the trip are: Meret Jucker (Conservation Biology and Ecology, 2017), Lowenna Jones (Conservation Biology and Ecology, 2017) and Ben Toulson (MSc Applied Ecology, 2017)

To learn more about the trip, visit the website or Facebook page.

Date: 2 February 2018

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