Saturday, June 30, 2012

And here is a video of the CUMECS expedition prepared by our friends Fabio and Vittorio from CNR:




This is our third day at sea and we are happy because we have good weather and our study area across the Malta-Sicily Escarpment has been almost completely surveyed with multibeam. The most interesting feature discovered so far is a large submarine landslide, the area of which is as large as 5000 football pitches!






We also continued getting samples from the seafloor, and today we managed to obtain six sediment cores from the submarine landslide and a nearby channel. We have been a bit unlucky with the seismic acquisition system, however, because the high temperatures are affecting the power supply; our helpful technicians are trying to solve the problem.


But we are happy for another reason! Our chief engineer Pietro has invited us to some his home-made limoncello...oh my God!!!! And we had a super lunch and dinner, with lots of fresh fish...rice with calamari, fried cod, shrimps, octopus and more!!! This is just a floating research restaurant!!!!

And the people on board the RV Urania are just start trembling for the tomorrow's football match......because the crew and some scientists are Italian and also there are some Spanish onboard!