You have not heard from me for a while because there has been little to report in the way of spectacular finds. The Barents Sea, at least the sector we are in, is a plain of muddy sediments at depths of 210 to 350 metres. That is not say that there is no life down there most of it is hidden in the mud and most are rather small and beyond the ability of my camera.

I thought that I should review where and what has been going on. Two images to remind you of where we are ^{[1, 2]}; in the second the oval area is the study area. The coloured images show the water depths from brown-yellow-green-blue from shallow to deep. Geologists also survey the area using a type of penetrating sonar that gives a picture of the structures in the seabed. This data is combined with the bathymetry and using this the geologists and biologists decide where to make their investigations ^[3] .

Two interesting features on the these images ^[4] : - first the long groove (top and middle left) is the trough made by a massive iceberg grinding into the seafloor probably not long after the end of the last ice age; secondly (middle and bottom rows) all the dots represent pock-marks made by methane gas flowing out through the mud and leaving a depression. It is thought the gas was trapped by the pressure of the ice during the ice age and when the ice retreated this gas was released all over the Barents Sea.

The animals that I am interested in often live around pockmarks but unfortunately most are now inactive. We did visit an area where active gas seepage has been found but we found no specialised fauna from our sampling. This area consists of two mounds ^[5] created by the slow upward movement of salt layers deep in the underlying rocks, called salt diapirs ^[6] these sites are often associated with gas seepage and unusual faunas.

Many thanks to Valerié Bellec for the multibeam images.

Having set the sampling grid the geologists using the multicorer ^{[7, 8]} take sediment samples and these are also used by a geochemist that looks for contaminants such as heavy metals. Here ^[9] Stepan (geochemist) washes down the tubes while in the background Sigrid and Valerie discuss what to do next.

You have already seen the video (CAMPOD) and beam trawl in action but the bulk of the quantitative data is gathered by the grab ^[10] . Andrey washes out the sediment through a 1 mm mesh in the auto-siever ^[11]; all animals are kept to be counted and identified later back at base.

All this data is combined in a GIS (geographical information system) system and maps of the seabed produced. These maps can show bathymetry, sediments, and geochemistry but here is one for the area off Tromsø showing a combination of sediments and faunas ^[12] . The faunas are recognised by the dominant species seen by the video combined with data from the trawl and grab. These maps are interactive and can be viewed on the MAREANO web site.

The MAREANO project is very ambitious but it will provide both scientists and decision makers with the information needed to manage the Norwegian Seas. The Barents Sea data will help decide how to manage the cod fishery and the coming oil exploration.

Finally its midnight through my porthole ^[13]

#1, the black pudding ^{[1 & 2]}

This 10cm long, purple black sausage shaped creature was in a number of the beam trawls. It’s not at all obvious what it is at first but there are 15 tentacles around the mouth and you can just make out five bands running along the body. These numbers suggest an animal with symmetry of five and therefore a relative of starfish. It is indeed a sea-cucumber (holothurian) of some kind and it will live by ingesting mud and feeding on the detritus in it.

#2 starfish and sea urchins ^{[3 & 4]}

These represent some of the more colourful and larger animals taken by the beam trawl and the starfish are easily seen on the videos. The muddy urchins you will not see, as they are burrowing creatures that we know as sea potatoes. Close up some of starfish show good protection from being eaten by foraging fish.

#3, too close for comfort? ^{[5 & 6]}

In this expanse of mud there are few place for attached epifauna to settle so even the smallest hard surfaces are colonised. The clams Astarte and Bathyarca both live close to the surface of the mud and their hind portions are often colonised by minute foraminifera and tiny hydroids and polyps. Here both have been colonised by a sponge that has taken over a large part of the shell but despite this the clams are alive and well.

#4 who’s in my house? ^{[7, 8 & 9]}

These exquisite tusk like tubes are built out of sand grains by the polychaete worm Pectinaria and are very common in many of our samples. But when you look at the opening many tubes are filled with mud and have a central burrow. Opening these you will find the peanut-worm Phascolion has taken over, it will also do this in empty snail shells and worm tubes. The peanut-worm does not eject the polychaete but settles and grows in empty tubes. In image 9 the grey sausage shape is the peanut–worm and the pink worm is the Pectinaria. What happens when the peanut-worm outgrows the tube I do not know!

#5 is it a coral? ^[10]

Without a scale these little calcareous parasols could be mistaken for a coral colony but the largest does not exceed a centimetre in diameter and are attached to small pebbles. Without the microscope it is difficult to see what they are but underneath the arms of the parasol there are rows of little cavities each containing an individual animal. This is a bryozoan and is more familiar to us in a mat or frond form.

The Ghost Orchid Epipogium aphyllum is an extremely rare species found in a very small number of sites within the UK. The plant feeds by parasitising fungi, rather than through photosynthesis and as a result is largely colourless, hence its name. It was deemed extinct in 2005 but a new specimen was found in 2009 and was later collected after being eaten through by a slug. The National Museum Wales Herbarium has seven specimens of this orchid, five courtesy of marauding slugs.

The specimen pictured was also cut down by a slug but this is even more rare, because of the way it has been preserved. This specimen was collected in 1982 and placed into a solution of formalin. The specimen arrived on my desk last week and I have since provided new labels, a new jar and it is now in a new preserving fluid of 10% DMDM Hydantoin and 0.5% glycerol increase its longevity and improve visual clarity. By preserving this specimen in fluid its 3 dimensional morphology is clearly demonstrated and the fluid gives it an even more ghostly appearance.

Dr Victoria Purewal, Botanical Conservation Officer

We are onto our fourth activity of the holidays, this one is linked to the brand new exhibition of  paintings and drawings from India collected by the artisit Howard Hodgkins. The pictures are amazing, with so much minute detail and colour, something that our younger visitors have really been appreciating. So many great wall hangings have been created by our talented visitors this week, here are a few!

Dissected pigeon from the natural history collection of Swansea Museum, great for anatomical studies of birds.

Since the late 1990s, when the report ‘A Common Wealth’ argued that museum education needed more resources and a higher profile, there has been a shift within museums. Education is now viewed central to the role of museums and integrated into everything museums do. Museums have always been spaces of scholarship, and there is a clear link between scholarship and education. The purpose of museum education has to be to enhance the ability of visitors to understand and appreciate museum collections.

The new emphasis on learning in museums mainly comes from a change in philosophy within the museum sector, but it is also driven by funders such as the Heritage Lottery Fund, who encourage applicants to include specific learning elements within their projects. It is surely not a coincidence that the Clore Duffield Foundation has funded dozens of Learning Spaces in the past 15 years.

Local context of big concepts

The purpose of the ‘Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales’ project is to lead the way in the implementation of the Distributed National Collection in Wales. This, very much in line with the modern way of viewing museum education, naturally includes a symbiotic relationship with learning. One important way of using museum collections is to integrate them into the school curriculum. Schools should be able to use their local museum as a resource to support their teaching.

In Wales it has recently been proposed to modify the Cwricwlwm Cymreig, and to integrate the Welsh dimension into every subject taught in schools, not only History. In the centenary of the death of Alfred Russell Wallace, who was instrumental in developing the concept of Evolution to explain the diversity of life, schools up and down Wales ought to be able to call on museums for local examples. This local distinctiveness is important in a cultural context; it can also be used as a teaching aid, and this is where the potential of the Cwricwlwm Cymreig lies as a useful integration in the National Curriculum.

There are many positive local examples to illustrate the wider context, for instance Wallace (who was born in Llanbadoc), the naturalist Edward Lhuyd (or Llwyd, after whom the Snowdon lily is named, as well as the Welsh natural history organization Cymdeithas Edward Llwyd), Arthur Trueman's work on Coal Measure stratigraphy, T.N. George's contributions to Welsh geology, geneticist Steve Jones, Bill Frost's 'flying machine', etc. The work of these pioneers could be used to illustrate the subject and make it meaningful at local school level, as well as their personalities heralded as positive local role models.

Education resources

The Welsh Museums Federation, through the ‘Linking Collections’ project, will develop education resources for schools specifically linked to examples in local museums. These will be available online to teachers. Our aspiration is to create digital and web based resources, derived from museums, which are so easy to use, comprehensive and fascinating that they find a place at the heart of education.

Of course, while museums support formal learning, they can do much more than that and the educational activities of museums should not be limited to the school curriculum. Museums provide experiences and opportunities that many people lack; they stimulate discussion and debate; and they provoke responses ranging from joy and pleasure ('I have never seen that before') to disbelief and doubt ('I don't believe it and you have got to work hard to convince me that it's true'). All of this contributes to both our intellectual and emotional education and development and enhances our lexicon of experiences. And because we know that the habits of museum visitation are formed early in life and passed down from generation to generation, schools are ideally placed to support sustainable numbers of museum visits, and hence the focus on the school curriculum by the ‘Linking Natural Science Collections in Wales’ project.