This cruise was the first in a series of four cruises planned to study the trophic interactions and particle export during the winter season in the Sargasso Sea. The researchers focused on several sampling locations including an anticyclonic eddy, slope waters of the eddy, and repeated visits to the Bermuda Atlantic Time Series (BATS) study site. The research focus for the cruise included phytoplankton production, microzooplankton grazing, mesozooplankton grazing and particle export. This process cruise was designed to quantify stocks and rate processes in the Sargasso Sea food web. Work entailed CTD casts, over the stern deployment of in situ primary production arrays and surface tethered sediment traps.
Until 26 November 2012 this cruise was identified by BIOS and R2R as AE-X1101. On 26 November 2012, the cruise ID was corrected to AE1102.
Original cruise data are available from the NSF R2R data catalog