The Lucky Strike and Menez Gwen hydrothermal fountains, situated in the Azores’ seas at a depth of about 1.700 and 870 meters, respectively, are applicants to the Net Natura 2000.

The request was presented by the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and the Sea, in the sequence of the works developed by the Oceanography and Fishing Department of the University of the Azores, having the respective candidatures already been sent, for analysis, to the European Commission by the Institute for the Conservation of the Nature and Biodiversity.

It is expected that, during next year, it is published in Community Newspaper the certification of these two fountains of great depth to the shelter of the European Directive regarding the conservation of the natural habitats and of the wild flora and fauna and respective application to the sea environment.

Now proposed like Community Interest Places, the Lucky Strike and Menez Gwen hydrothermal fountains already have a management plan since 2003, time in which the Government of the Azores promoted, in Horta, an international meeting that collected all the interested ones in this classification.

In the opportunity, the Azorean Executive was distinguished by the WWF with the reward “Gift to the Earth”, taking into account the work developed in the defence and appreciation of the hydrothermal fountains.

The Lucky Strike and Menez Gwen are important places from the scientific point of view, since the production of organic matter, naturally, happens but in the absence of light. The scientific and biotechnological potential of these areas is considered extraordinary, reason for which those fountains are, every year, target of several international scientific missions.

Located around a lava lake, the Lucky Strike is the most extensive active hydrothermal field of the Northern Atlantic, being the Menez Gwen positioned in the flanks of a recent volcano, of 120 meters of height and 600 of diameter.