After over 7 weeks at sea the #SDAScience expedition is finally at an end and the science team flies home tomorrow. A gentoo penguin turned up at the harbour to see us off!

City of sea squirts. Rich biodiversity colonizes the shallow sill of a fjord in Admiralty Bay. Dave Barnes, Chester Sands, Theresa Gossmann and Nadescha Zwerschke have just finished exploring seabed life and carbon sinks emerging from glacier retreat! #SDAScience

The trawls and cameras revealed a range of weird, wonderful and fascinating creatures living in a habitat dominated by cold temperatures, enormous pressure and soft mud! When the samples return we can start the difficult job of putting names to them all! #SDAScience (4/4)

Yesterday the #SDAScience expedition closed Signy Station for the winter and picked up the station team. Next stop is the Falkland Islands!

1st sea spiders of the trip & 1st time I've ever seen them alive. These 2 Nyphons (australe I think) came up in the multicorer. 2nd 📸 is under UV, highlighting their "hairs". One was carrying round a large brood. #SDAScience #seaspidersaturday

Amongst the mud-dwelling creatures were sea spiders, sea pigs (types of sea cucumber), soft corals and spiky scale-worms! These animals come from the test deployment at 600 m but our next trawls will be much deeper! #SDAScience 📸@glupglup2

And finally, Bosun's Mate Alan Howard took crafting to the next level by *whittling actual sculptures* 😲 Here's a whale's tail made to celebrate a colleague's special birthday while on the #SDAScience trials, as well as a whale for Alan's son. Alan... we want one. Please? 5/5

Using a range of equipment, the #SDAScience team have set about trying to understand this unique habitat. We deployed up 7.6km (4.7 miles) of winch cable at a time (over 100 km/62 miles in total), to lower 2 camera systems, 2 types of trawl and the CTD into the abyss! (3/4)

The Hesperides Deep includes two basins that get as deep as 5.6 km (3.5 miles) in depth - making it amongst the deepest 6% of the Southern Ocean sea floor. To our knowledge, nobody has ever reported collecting sea floor creatures from this abyssal area before!! #SDAScience (2/4)

The #SDAScience expedition has completed its scientific tasks in time to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather before heading to our Signy Island Station to close it for winter. 🌊 🚢 ❄️

Last sunset before we cast off in the morning and start our journey down South. Very excited for the #Antarctic #SDAScience to come.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse and the #RRSSirDavidAttenborough is navigating choppy waters near King George Island. The deck science has to wait until things calm down later. #SDAScience

Last night the seafloor biology team on #SDAScience tested two types of small trawls to sample animals from the sea floor. The sample came up with lots of mud so we all got messy sieving it away and revealing the amazing creatures inside! 📸@glupglup2

A few #seaspider beauties from our test of the Agassiz trawl. A couple of Nymphon species and an Austropallene. Phpotographing them under UV light to check for any biofluorescence. Next trawl is 5.5km deep, really looking forward to seeing what we discover #SDAScience

Having breakfast in Antartica!!!!#breakfast #Antartica #SDAScience #SirDavidAttenborough

Some cracking views for helideck running here on #RRSSirDavidAttenborough. Perfect use of the helideck :) #SDAScience

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus o’r Antarctig! Dathlu ar yr #RRSSirDavidAttenborough. Happy St David's Day from #Antarctica! Celebrating on the RRS Sir David Attenborough. #StDavidsDay | #DyddGwylDewi #SDAScience #WelshCakes

Amid an intensive schedule of night fishing & instrument deployments, @griffiths_huw found quiet moments to make this ink drawing of whales seen on the #SDAScience expedition 🐳 Featuring long-finned pilot, minke, fin, humpback & orca. We reckon this has pointillism vibes? 2/5

All done for Project RaCE:TraX on SD025, lots of seawater and mud to analyse thanks to all the support and enthusiastic help from amazing crew and scientists ❤️ #SDAScience continues, on to moorings and Hesperides Deep!

Over the past week @griffiths_huw & @morroghmax, the crew and #SDAScience team have been testing the new deep sea research capabilities of the #RRSSirDavidAttenborough in one of the deepest and least explored parts of #Antarctica, the Hesperides Deep! 🧵(1/4)