(January 27, 2017) They cover more than 70% of the planet’s surface and represent the habitat for 50% of its species: oceans are still “perfect strangers” to mankind, since only 5% of their depth have been explored. The study of the deep sea is a challenge, perhaps even more of space research. No light is able to reach the depth of the oceans, and the pressure may be even a thousand times higher than that of the atmosphere. A challenged accepted by the European Consortium Emso Eric (European Multidisciplinary Seafloor and water column Observatory / European research infrastructure consortium), launched today in Rome for the Foreign Press. A Europe-wide research infrastructure in the field of marine sciences, consisting of a network of automatic monitoring systems distributed in the depths of seas around Europe, which has its headquarters in Italy, at the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, lead partner of the consortium for Italy. The challenge is more than ever essential for the present and for the future, because the study and the integrated and constant monitoring of Oceans could provide valuable information about climate change (the oceans play a key role in climate and CO2 regulators cycles), protection of biodiversity and the prevention of risks from tsunamis and earthquakes, like those that have hit areas of central Italy in these days, which will be studied and better understood in the context of the continental dynamics. “The seismic network is placed on the ground – explains Carlo Doglioni, INGV national president – usually they are placed in seismic stations in the sea but temporarily. With Emso this will be made permanent, so we will have much more extensive and widespread information on natural seismicity, so a greater global coverage for more information also on the underground and on the structure of the Earth’s mantle. Working on the knowledge of the earth and on the dynamic mechanisms of the plaques maybe one day we could even predict earthquakes”. As a European project (Italy, France, Ireland, Spain, Greece, UK, Portugal and Romania are member countries, but the promoters are convinced that their number will grow rapidly) Emso Eric has a specific political meaning, representing “the necessary and unquestionable European dimension for any successful collaboration in science, especially in the environmental sciences, while presently the ideal of unified Europe is put in doubt”, explained Doglioni. (Red)
