Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The fleet of corers we request is urgently needed to enhance and to replace, our ageing and broken or lost coring equipment that are deployed in the St. Lawrence and the Arctic. UQAR and its nonprofit organization, REFORMAR, manage research vessels for the Canadian scientific community (R/V Coriolis II, Lampsillis, Louis-Edmond-Hamelin,) which provides access to the St. Lawrence seaway. These ships are suitable for deploying the coring suite requested. In the Arctic, where most of the team members have NSERC-DG grants, the CCGS Amundsen is used for scientific research with the capacity to deploy the proposed corers. These research ships are the most (if not the only) cost-effective way for Canadian researchers to develop research projects requiring seafloor samples in the St. Lawrence and the Arctic. The ISMER-UQAR coring suite was used extensively over the past 20 years by the Canadian community. Most instruments now show signs of advanced wear and are becoming increasingly ineffective to collect sediments. Historically, in addition to the extensive use by ISMER-UQAR, the coring equipment was used for the research programs of several researchers from McGill, U. Laval, INRS-ETE, Concordia U. and UQAM, as well as by provincial and federal ministries (e.g., Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Geological Survey Canada, Environment Canada). From 2001-2021, the equipment was used by 437 researchers to recover samples for over 110 scientific expeditions at sea (842 days at sea) and used in the training of 1593 HQP. Now, our box corer, the most highly used of our corers for recent sediment and benthic fauna needs urgent replacement as it was lost at sea. Furthermore, we are lacking the means of sampling near the surface-water interface for benthic biology and biogeochemistry. We seek funding to diversify our coring suite including box corer, hammer corer, multi-corer and vibrocorer. The box, hammer and multi corer will provide enhanced and more precise access to samples from the sediment-water interface. The vibrocorer can penetrate consolidated or coarser sediments and thus allows us to access the sedimentary records of sandy or consolidated layers. The hammer corer is ideal for shallow water work aboard a small boat, which can lower operational costs. Together, this suite allows full integration of sediment sampling that opens the door to new projects and boosts innovation. We also request funds for a multi-corer, a vibrocorer and a small portable hammer corer. A large portion of Canadian oceanography research relies on this equipment in order to retrieve the sediments needed for geological, biological and geochemical oceanography in the Arctic and the St. Lawrence. To grant broad access to the equipment, we maintain a pool of instruments accessible by all Canadian researchers and readily available to any potential users. This guarantees that the equipment is available to all regardless of personal background.