The BoWaSnapper is a Multihorizon-Bottom Water Sampler, suitable for deep-sea deployment and used for the investigation of the sediment-water interface (particles, organisms, geochemical tracers).

It has been developed in collaboration with Dr. E. Sauter from Alfred-Wegener-Institut Bremerhaven and is successfully in use in
water depths between 20m and 5500m since 2001.

The BoWaSnapper enables the high resolutive sampling of the bottom closest water layers within a very short period (some minutes only).

Six transparent water bottles vertically adjustable and attached to the middle axis carry out the water sampling.

Equipped with an autonomous bottom releaser that closes the water bottles some minutes after the touch-down on the sea bed, the Multihorizon-Bottom Water Sampler can be used with any serial wire, i.e. no data transfer cable is necessary.

The six transparent water bottles are aligned with the current by a current vane.

A bottom releaser closes the bottles within a certain time delay after dispersed sediment particles through the touch-down are swept away. By that original bottom water is collected from every distinct layer above the sea bed.