US RV Healy and Swedish Icebreaker Oden planning 2005 voyage

Marine habitat mapping and Ocean exploration
SEATTLE -- The Coast Guard icebreaker Healy, just back from its annual research trek to the Arctic, is already preparing for next year's voyage - a joint venture with Sweden in the white world of the polar north.

The U.S. vessel will be working with the Swedish icebreaker Oden, plowing through sea and ice to take deep sediment samples from the ocean floor at the top of the world. The Healy, which is based here, will set out from Barrow, Alaska, and the Oden from Tromso, Norway.

For the past three seasons, scientists aboard the Healy have been focusing on "shelf-basin interaction," the area where the continental shelf meets the sea floor.

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