RV Aranda during the MemoBaltic expedition. Photo Credit: Ilkka Lastumäki, Syke. Can microplastics help us understand the long-term impacts of human activities on marine ecosystems? The MemoBaltic project, funded through the second AQUARIUS Transnational Access Funding Call, is exploring this question by introducing the novel concept of microplastics as "living archives" that preserve evidence of…

Bernadette Ní Chonghaile, AQUARIUS Project Manager at the EGU stand. Credit: Seascape Belgium. From 3-8 May, AQUARIUS was in Vienna for the European Geoscience Union General Assembly (EGU) 2026, the largest geosciences conference in Europe, bringing together around 20,000 scientists across ocean, Earth, planetary and space sciences. At the AQUARIUS stand, the team presented the project’s work…

Utö-Marine-and-Atmospheric-Research-Station. Funded under the first AQUARIUS Call, the BASEVOC project ran from April to September 2025 with the aim of enhancing understanding of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the marine atmosphere. Coordinated by the University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Lund University, and GEOMAR, the project focused on the role of biologically derived trace gases in…

Athens has long been a place where ideas shape the future and it was in this historic setting that the AQUARIUS consortium met for its second General Assembly, hosted by The Hellenic Centre for Marine Research (HCMR). While the meeting kicked-off on 3 March, for some partners, the work had already begun. Prior to the…

Oceanographer and Early Career Researcher Inan Ilkay Rodrigo shares his experience at the SOCIB Glider Facility. While field deployments are often the highlight of glider training, Inan’s stay coincided with two severe back-to-back storm events, with wave heights reaching 5.5 m 🌪️🌊. Under these conditions, ship based operations were not possible. Despite this, the week…

This October, AQUARIUS delivered a hands-on training opportunity for hydrographic surveyors and seabed mappers in collaboration with HydroOctave and INFOMAR. Hosted aboard the Marine Institute’s state-of-the-art research vessel Tom Crean, the programme provided participants with the rare opportunity of learning at sea while working directly with industry-standard multibeam echosounder (MBES) systems.   The training programme…