COMMUNIQUÉ
MARINE NATIONAL FACILITY STEERING COMMITTEE
Revision of RV Investigator’s voyage schedules and piggyback opportunities

The Marine National Facility Steering Committee (MNFSC) would like to announce a revision to Investigator’s 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 voyage schedules, which were previously released on 26 November 2014.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, voyage IN2016_V04 entitled ‘Informing the science-based management of natural and cultural assets in the deep Coral Sea’ has been withdrawn from the schedule. To fully utilise funded sea time on Investigator, the schedule has been revised to now include two new highly ranked voyages which fit within spatial and temporal constraints of the existing schedule.
The first of these, to be undertaken in August and September 2016, will be led by Dr Zoran Ristovski who will conduct research to understand the extent to which the Great Barrier Reef is a source of climatically relevant aerosols. The second voyage, to take place in September and October 2016, will be led by Dr Martina Doblin and will seek to understand the influence of temperature and nutrients on the biogeochemical function of ocean microbes.
To accommodate these voyages, minor schedule adjustments have been made around the timing and ports utilised by other transit and research

voyages, including rescheduling the now removed Cairns to Brisbane transit voyage research.
As a result of these changes, a number of new opportunities for piggyback proposals utilising spare berths have been created in the schedule. The table below lists these new and other remaining piggyback opportunities (in red), which the research community is encouraged to consider.
For further information on piggyback proposals and the process to follow, please refer to the Marine National Facility website.
The revised MNF voyage schedule which includes the changes noted above can be found on the MNF website at: http://www.mnf.csiro.au/Voyages/Investigator- schedules.aspx.
I would like to thank to marine community for their ongoing support of our wonderful new vessel Investigator.

Dr Ian Poiner Chair, MNFSC

Voyage #, Chief Scientist and title	Dates	From/to	Spare berths	
IN2016_T01 – Dr Simon Williams, University of Sydney – transit voyage	24/6-3/7/16	Lautoka to Brisbane	12	
IN2016_V05–Dr Martina Doblin, University of Technology, Sydney- Influence of temperature and nutrient supply on the biogeochemical function and diversity of ocean microbes	
27/9-20/10/16	Brisbane to Sydney	
3	
IN2016_VO6–Dr Bernadette Sloyan, CSIRO-Sustained monitoring of the East Australian Current: Mass, heat and freshwater transports	24/10-11/11/16	Sydney to Brisbane	19	
IN2016_V07–Dr Timothy O’Hara, Victoria Museum-Sampling the abyss: latitudinal biodiversity patterns along the base of Australia’s eastern continental margin	
14/11-17/12/16	Brisbane to Hobart	
9	
IN2017_V02–Professor Tom Trull, CSIRO-Integrated Marine Observing System Southern Ocean Time Series automated moorings for climate and carbon cycle studies southwest of Tasmania	
15-30/3/17	
Hobart to Hobart	
6	

http://www.mnf.csiro.au/	MNF Communique – 12 February 2016