The Italian Icebreaker ‘Laura Bassi’who is participating in a fact-finding mission in the Antarcticahas reached the southernmost point ever reached by a ship, announced Tuesday the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) of Italia.
The technicians and researchers traveling on the ship, which is taking part in the oceanographic campaign of the 38th Italian Expedition of the National Antarctic Research Program (PNRA), reached “hitherto unexplored” territory in the Whale Bay in the Ross Sea, in the Antarctica.
In this way, the ‘Laura Bassi’ “It has broken an absolute world record,” he said in the OGS, which highlighted in a note that “the sea conditions, extraordinarily free of ice, allowed CTD profiling and scientific fishing activities to be carried out.”
“This hitherto unexplored area was reached for sampling within the framework of the BIOCLEVER project, a multidisciplinary approach to study the biophysical coupling that structures the Ross Sea continental shelf larval fish community,” the Institute explained.
The first results of the “study of the physical parameters of seawater (from the surface to the depth close to the bottom, 216 meters) showed the presence of especially cold water and are of great importance for studying the dynamics of currents in the Ross Sea“.
“In addition, a first analysis of the extracted material revealed a high density of larvae and juvenile stages of fish species, highlighting the presence of some varieties rarely observed in the Ross Sea, as well as the presence of high masses of unicellular algae denoting a high primary production and encourage further research,” added the OGS.
The journey of the ‘Laura Bassi’
The journey of ‘Laura Bassi’ began on November 17, when he left Trieste (northeast of Italia) to New Zealand, from whose port of Lyttelton it departed on January 5 towards the Mario Zucchelli station and the Ross Sea.
The BIOCLEVER project has been coordinated by the Institute of Polar Sciences (CNR-Isp) of the Italian National Research Council, with the collaboration of the MORSea marine observatory (Parthenope University).
The record was reached during the first oceanographic campaign, with projects such as mapping the seabed for the creation of maps of areas that lack them, which is about to conclude with the change of scientific personnel at the Mario Zucchelli station on the next 4th of February. (EFE)
OUR PODCASTS:
– ‘Espacio Vital’: How are soccer and the coronavirus similar? Dr. Elmer Huerta responds: