Today, as part of the CONMAR project, I had my first trip with a research cutter. After a corona test and a safety briefing, the Senckenberg left Wilhelmshaven at 8AM. At this trip we traveled until Wangerooge, including strong swell and a delicious lunch. According to research, there are about 600,000 tons of munition in this area. We went to a total of eight measuring stations, where we took water and sediment samples. These are now subsequently being analyzed for explosive-type compounds, pollutants, and TNT. This will provide information on the environmental impact of contamination from dumped munitions, which in turn will provide information on management strategies for dealing with these munitions. In addition, the samples will be used to build a database of marine bacterial populations for the sister project CREATE. The field trip was a lot of fun and gave me, as a social scientist, an excellent insight into the working procedures of my natural science colleagues from CONMAR and CREATE.
Alexander Pechmann, Global Climate Forum
