CAML-Cousteau expedition tracking page

2:20
This video shows the first days of the polar expedition (part of the CAML-Census of Antarctic marine Life-program) aboard the Research Vessel Tangaroa toward the Antarctic continent.

1:51
Here is a presentation of the life in Antarctic aboard the RV Tangaroa.

3:24
This video is the third video sent by our correspondent on RV Tangaroa. It shows different research activities on board.

3:33
This video shows the researches made aboard RV Tangaroa during her trip on the Ross sea. We can discover different scientific activities and methods.

3:30
This video presents different sea trials conducted aboard the RV Tangaroa on scientific gears.

2:50
This video shows NIWA Scientists explaining Southern ocean currents and Iceberg aboard RV Tangaroa during its current expedition in Antarctic.

3:22
We are back at Neumayer base to break away the ice for a docking place along the cliffs of the shelfice. The freightship Naja Arctica has been waiting for several weeks for the fast-ice to open in order to unload building materials for the new station. Polarstern is now helping a bit, which leaves us some time to show material on the Emperor Penguins that breed in the nearby Atka Bay. Emperor Penguins lay their egg in midwinter. Standing on the sea-ice the male incubates the egg on its feet under a bellyfold. In spring both the parents start to commute between the sea and the colony to meet the increasing food demands of the hungry chick. By the time the chick becomes larger, it is summer and diminishing ice brings food sources in the ocean nearby. However, in a heavy ice year like we currently experience, parents must continue to commute over ice over considerable distances. The Atkay Bay birds currently have to travel 20 km's over ice to reach the colony and back. During our first visit to Neumayer we made distant aerial photographs of the 'creches' in which the chicks gather. The counting of the thousands of animals on the pictures is a painstaking job and not yet fully completed. Regular surveys of major birdcolonies provide a measure for the potential effects of climate change, which is a key issue in the research of the International Polar Year 2007-2008. Message from the IMARES team on board Polarstern voyage ANT-24-2

1:37
In the wet lab of the Aurora Australis, Bertrand Richer de Forges, Crustacean biologist in New Caledonia, is speaking about the Antarctic animals caught by the beam trawl ID 297 at 560 meters deep.

1:26
Each time a drag net is hauled up on the trawl deck of the Aurora Australis, the entire shift is ready to spring into action, outfitted in orange combat suits! First comes an initial sorting to get out quickly the most fragile and the most accessible organisms. This first operation is followed by a sifting session, using water to sieve what remains. The purpose of this sieving is to separate organisms from the sediment in which they are stuck and also to classify them by size. Next, in the wet lab, the organisms in each size class are separated by the phylum to which they belong, and then they are conserved to be kept for repatriation at the Museum.

1:08
The underwater sea floor seen here is very different from those we've seen heretofore. It is continuously covered with thriving living organisms. The fauna are dominated by branched "corals" about twenty cm tall, rather colorful and decorated with numerous lighter-colored brittlestars. Several species of white foliate (flattened in a leaf shape) sponges and other, yellower ones are scattered over the living tapestry. We can see corridors that are bare of organisms. These areas seem to have been scraped by rocks or ice, but the hypothesis of a passing iceberg at such a depth is discarded. Thus it could be a case of a landslide of big rocky chunks that would have tumbled down the continental talus. The rare vertebrates seen are Notothenioids and, for the first time in the mission, macrouroids, also known as grenadiers!

1:08
A group of three Humpback whales has come within a few meters of the ship.

0:40
Inventorying life in Antarctica is not easy: the geographic isolation and the harsh climate make it a region that has stayed unknown to humans for a long time. Our understanding of this environment is still very incomplete and justifies the attention of the CEAMARC mission.

0:26
Video from the Deep Underwater Camera by Rob Beaman, research scientist in marine geology at James Cook University, Cairns, Australia. Feather stars live fixed to a substrate (sediment, other organisms) by small appendices called cirri. To move about, they free themselves by opening the cirri and moving their arms in an organized fashion that releases them. They rise in the water column and move a few meters then drop like a parachute. The video shows several Antarctic feather stars swimming, here Promachocrinus kerguelensis. It can move as a flight reflex when confronted with a potential predator or an environmental disturbance, due here to the approaching camera. Swimming time is brief (a few seconds) because the energy required to mobilize the arm muscles is quite substantial.

1:51
By Sophie Mouge, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris. A sequence showing the daily work of scientists currently onboard the Aurora Australis near the Antarcic continent

0:35
By Sophie Mouge, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris

0:12
Rob Beaman, research scientist in marine geology in Cairns (James Cook University): "The camera is flying along the edge of an iceberg scour. Over time, icebergs float over the shallow seafloor and where the bottom of the icebergs touch the seafloor, they leave wide scour marks that are many meters wide and several meters deep. The icebergs crush and kill the marine life in these scour marks. The video shows a relict scour mark that has been recolonised by benthic marine life." Marc Eléaume, researcher at the Museum in Paris, specialist in crinoids: "The benthic macrofauna seems relatively poor and fairly widely dispersed. Some crinoids and a white sea star make up the mobile fauna. At the end of the sequence we can see two swimming shapes: these are crinoids of the sub-family Heliometrinae and more precisely Promachocrinus kerguelensis. My observations at the Dumont d'Urville base taught me that only this species flees from the passage of an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle)."

0:15
The seafloor being observed shows a continuous tapestry of sessile organisms, dominated by colonial ascidians (sea squirts) and bryozoans. A few big white sponges are her and there. This shows the milieu is fairly stable, so this area has not been scrubbed by floating icebergs. All these organisms feed by filtration: they capture particles suspended in the water. Teleost vertebrates are seen passing in the field of vision: they are from the genus Trematomus.

1:03
Credits G Chapelle, International Polar Foundation/Alfred Wegener Institute A rare footage of a group of crabeater seals swimming together in in crystal-clear and still antarctic bay, as they inspect the German Ice-breaker Polarstern. Filmed during her recent expedition to the Antarctic peninsula for the Census of Antarctic Marine Life, in collaboration with Cousteau and the German polar operator of the ship, the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI).

2:11
An extract of Captain Cousteau's return to Antarctica, this time with children from the 5 continents, to symbolically take possession of the continent for the future generations.

48:51
An exclusive full-length movie of Captain Cousteau expedition to antarctica.