NOC News Round Up - 06 April 2018

New Deep Reef Discovered A new and previously uncharted deep reef has been discovered off the island of Pulau Bidong in Malaysia. The team working on the ACCORD project, led by the NOC, made the discovery in about 25m of water during an acoustic multibeam survey of the area, which was then verified by sidescan sonar imagery. A mini ROV was then sent to look at the new reef, confirming it was of major interest for habitat mapping. The University Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) who are partners in the project, sent a diving team then to closely view and identify species of hard and soft corals.  Mission Deep Sea Our Executive Director, Prof. Ed Hill, has written an opinion piece about the ocean as a scientific, technological, economic and geopolitical frontier. "Now is the time to act—to end our blindness to the sea—and to gather the information we need to manage the ocean's resources and keep its health under continuous watch as people inevitably turn to the ocean to tackle some of the greatest challenges of our age." Read it on Newsweek online here. Easter on board Our research ships work round the clock on an intense programme of marine science. So finding activities to maintain a healthy balance between life and work is important for staff on all our expeditions. On board the RRS James Cook the jc159_24s expedition crew enjoyed an Easter egg painting competition! Thanks to @efdarlington for the photos shared on Twitter.   This email was sent to mantiskhiralla@gmail.com using GovDelivery Communications Cloud on behalf of: National Oceanography Centre · Waterfront Campus · European Way · Southampton · SO14 3ZH · United Kingdom