The Regional Secretary for Science, Technology and Equipment, José Contente, and the Regional Secretary for Environment and Sea, Álamo Meneses, visited yesterday the Gago Coutinho Ship at the Horta harbour, invited by Captain Peça Pacheco and the Director General of the Hydrographical Institute, in order to get to know the technical and scientific relevance of the 10-day expedition taking place on board of that ship to the Azorean seamounts.
Ricardo Serrão Santos, Director of the Oceanography and Fisheries Department of the University of the Azores, accompanied the visit.
Today the Oceanography and Fisheries Department of the University of the Azores (DOP/UAÇ) begins a research cruise to the seamounts Condor and Voador, located at 22 and 123 nautical miles from the city of Horta, respectively. This expedition aims at assessing the biodiversity and functioning of these important ecosystems.
After the visit to the ship, the Regional Secretary for Science, Technology and Equipment said to the journalists that “every research project is fundamental. In this case, the DOP is turning into a true centre of excellence regarding ocean exploration science and technology”. José Contente added that “this mission, which is co-financed by the Azores Regional Government, has and will have important effects on research, on our capacity to collect samples and also to carry out surveys on the fields of geology, chemistry and biochemistry, as well as on our own knowledge of our sea hydrography. Therefore, the DOP will be, even more than it is now, on the vanguard of ocean exploration, in the case of the Atlantic Ocean”.
José Contente also stated that “DOP is an internationally credible and credited institution; for instance, in what regards ocean exploration it is the 7th world best positioned organisation, due to its researchers work. That is why the Regional Government decided to finance the new DOP building almost entirely, as it finances its research projects”.
The cruise will take place on board of the Gago Coutinho Ship, of the Hydrographical Institute, and benefits from the presence of the team and of the ROV Luso from EMPEC (Mission Structure for the Extension of the Continental Platform). The expedition’s main goal is to assess the interaction between cold-water corals colonies and deep-sea fisheries. The cold-water corals, some of which live over a thousand years, are considered priority species in preservation terms.
The mission, which will take place until August 15, is part of the CoralFish project (www.eu-fp7-coralfish.net), funded under the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research. One day will be fully dedicated to the CONDOR project (www.condor-project.org).The results will also be relevant for the HERMIONE European project (www.eu-hermione.net), in which every work regarding seamounts is coordinated by DOP/UAÇ.
This mission is also supported and co-financed by the Government of the Azores, through the Regional Secretariat for Science, Technology and Equipment, and by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.
The seamount and cold-water coral research is relevant worldwide, given the economical importance of these ecosystems from the point of view of fisheries, mineral prospection and bio-prospection, including genetic resources.
The seamount ecosystems are also connected to sustainable management and preservation. The DOP/UAÇ is currently one of the world’s leading institutions in terms of deep-sea research, especially on what regards hydrothermal and seamount ecosystems.
In the last five years, the DOP/UAÇ has become the seventh world scientific institution to publish international scientific articles on these matters, indexed on the Web of Knowledge international database, which is used to confer overall scientific contributions.
Also in this expedition, and besides accompanying it, a team of eight DOP/UAÇ researchers, leaded by Ricardo Serrão Santos, the DOP director, and two geologists from the Energy and Geology National Laboratory will spend a day studying the geological features of the Menez Gwen hydrothermal site, in the scope of a project funded under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.
Today, the Secretary of State for National Defence and Maritime Affairs, Marcos Perestrello, and the Regional Secretary for Environment and Sea, Álamo Meneses, among others, will visit the expedition, taking the opportunity to observe the research operations in the new Monte Condor Underwater Observatory.