The eastern equatorial Atlantic is on of the world's most important upwelling regions. As vertical velocities are too small to be measured directly, they have to be inferred by indirect methods. One of these techniques is to measure the helium isotope disequilibrium in and below the mixed layer. The Central Water masses below the surface are typically enriched in the isotope helium-3, so upwelling can be determined by an enhanced helium-3/helium-4 ratio within the mixed layer. 140 helium samples in copper tubes have been taken from the Niskin bottles at CTD stations, mainly from the mixed layer and the upper 200 m of the water column. These samples will be analysed with respect to helium isotopes (helium-3, helium-4) and neon at the high resolution mass spectrometer at the institute for environmental physics, university of Bremen in 2012. In a first step, the gas has to be extracted from the water stored in the copper tubes, and this gas will then be transferred to the mass spectrometer. The helium isotope data are measured in the framework of the project SOPRAN to infer upwelling rates in the equatorial band of the Atlantic.See "Further details:" for information on measurement technique.