As part of the “WEGNordOst” project, which is funded by the state of Bremen under the state program “Promotion of Research, Development and Innovation” (FEI) of the Senator for Economics, Labor and Europe of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, we are investigating the interaction between temperature and thermal conductivity in gas-bearing sediments. For this purpose, we conducted measurements in the Eckernförde Bay (Baltic Sea) with the research vessel ALKOR in November 2022 and April 2023. We were able to collect a lot of interesting data, the analysis of which will keep us busy for a while.

At this point we would like to thank all participants for the very good cooperation during the two field trips. Besides our project partner University of Bremen we were supported during cruise AL584 by Marine Sampling Holland (MSH), who provided a vibrocorer including an operator. Furthermore, Dr. Arne Lohrberg from the Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel was with us, who is a great help in collecting and analyzing echosounder data. During cruise AL591 we were graciously able to borrow the heavy parts of a heat flow probe from GEOMAR. Also with us were Danilo Scheppukat (GEOMAR) and Dr. Florian Neumann from GFZ Potsdam, who are working on marine heat flow. Special thanks go to the crew of FS ALKOR, who managed to stay on position during our time-consuming measurements and managed the deployment and recovery of the heavy equipment in the best possible way and always kept us in high spirits.