Satellite tracking of Weddell and southern Elephant seals leaded to the discovery of a spot at the southernmost Atlantic, where seal trajectories converged. This spot lays at the Antarctic continental shelf edge, where the Filchner Trough reaches the continental slope. Presumably, high biological productivity in this area allows seals finding food to thrive in the extreme environmental Antarctic conditions. It is also the place where super cooled and more saline water sinks starting a deep sea trajectory boosting what it is called the global thermohaline circulation or conveyor belt, which distributes energy (as heat) and matter (as dissolved substances and gasses) in the ocean around the planet

Investigate the benthic community and sediment characteristics in the Filchner Trough and its vicinities and their relationships to the environmental conditions at the sea surface.

To get benthic animal samples we use Agassiz trawl, which provide semi-qualitative information on the benthic community. We also use a submarine HR camera mounted on a ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) to develop transects, where one can observe the seabed and its larger inhabitants (visible for the human eye). Sediment samples are recovered with a multicorer, which enables getting the water-sediment interfase almost undisturbed. This is very important to analyse the most recently deposited material onto the seabed.

Meteorological conditions in the Antarctic are usually adverse because of sea ice, which sometimes is dense and impedes the access to target places. During the expedition we could not reach the western flank of the Trough. We could only visit 14 stations with the multicorer, all of them on eastern flank and the axis of the Trough. In total we generated more than 300 sediment samples, which are yet to be fully analyzed. In addition, 56 benthic community stations were performed (10 ROV transects and 46 Agassiz trawls). They provided hundreds of samples from different communities and taxonomic groups, which are also in the analytical process. However, the video transects enabled the observation of benthic communities as abundant and diverse as those commonly found at the eastern Weddell Sea where these communities can have values similar to those found in coral reefs.