MapGES 2019: Summer 2019 cruise on board of N/I Arquipélago

Objective: to explore seamounts of the Azorean archipelago to better understand the distribution patterns of VMEs and commercial fish species. A special interest was placed in exploring deep-sea areas along the Mid Atlantic Ridge and close to islands of the central group. The device used in this survey corresponds to the low-cost drift-cam video platform designed and developed at IMAR.

Vessel: N/I Arquipélago

Chief scientist: Telmo Morato

Scientific team: Telmo Morato, Carlos Dominguez-Carrió, Sérgio Gomes, Gerald H. Taranto, Jordi Blasco, Manuela Ramos, Laurence Fauconnet, Cristina G. Zárate, Marina Carreiro-Silva

Main achievements:

1. Successfully tested the new design of the low-cost drift-cam system developed at IMAR
2. Exploration of over 80 km of seabed down to 750 m depth in 8 different areas for which little or no information of its benthic communities was available
3. Discovery of new sites that host diverse coral gardens and sponge grounds that were unknown to science
4. New data on the distribution of VMEs in the seamounts of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge