By Cloé Mueller.
20 October 2026. This summer, researchers from the Broadband Acoustic Lab (BAL), led by Dr. Liz Weidner in UConn's Department of Marine Sciences, successfully deployed a seafloor lander in the Arctic to study changing ocean conditions in a glacial fjord.
The lander, a triangular aluminum platform equipped with advanced acoustic instruments (Figure 1a), was deployed in Hansbukta, a glacial bay within Hornsund Fjord in southwest Svalbard (Figure 1b). The scientific team includes Dr. Weidner, BAL Ph.D. student Cloé Mueller, and Dr. Tom Blanford from the University of New Hampshire (Figure 1c).
Positioned ~55 meters below the surface, the lander uses upward-looking sonar systems to continuously monitor the water column above it. These acoustic observations will be used to investigate ocean structure, sea ice conditions, and mixing processes in the fjord throughout the year.
The team successfully recovered the instrument one week after deployment, obtaining an initial acoustic dataset that will help validate the system and guide future analyses. The lander was then redeployed for a full year of observations and will be recovered during a return campaign next summer. The year-long record will provide an unprecedented view of how polar ocean conditions evolve across seasons, including during the winter months when the fjord is inaccessible for fieldwork.