Photo: Trine Lise Sviggum Helgerud, NPI.
The area covered in 2020 are given in Fig. 3.5.1.4, and 3.5.1.5. In contrast to previous years, the station grid in 2020 covered the entire Barents Sea shelf, including the upper bathyal slope north to FJL. Russian and Norwegian experts were involved in the megabenthos by-catch processing and distributed on the BESS vessels (RV “G.O. Sars”, RV “Kronprints Håkon”, SRV “AtlantNIRO”, and SRV “Vilnus”). On the Norwegian vessel “Johan Hjort” megabenthos was only processed to large animal groups due to a lack of skilled benthic experts onboard.