Deep Sea Research Methods to Be Used During the Exploration of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge Polymetallic Sulphide Areas

Deep sea research and monitoring belong to the most expensive and technically challenging marine operations. The modern approach focuses on applying non-invasive and non-destructive methods, so all types of imagery and recording are in use, from microscopic in situ photography of the water column to detect marine snow and the microplankton, to acoustics, both passive (listening to sounds of marine organisms) and active (recognition of objects and structures in the water column and on the seabed). Some destructive sampling is, however, unavoidable (plankton, fish, small nekton, sediments). The seabirds and marine mammal censuses involve both direct sightings and counting from the ship (the Tasker method) and passive acoustic buoys recording vocalization of marine mammals.