The deep-sea reefs that surprised the scientists

By Abigail Klein Leichman

Eleven Israeli marine researchers took to the Mediterranean Sea aboard the Robert Ballard owned research ship, the Nautilus, and discovered many unexpected surprises.

When a team of Israeli marine researchers took off on a two and a half week voyage aboard the Exploration Vessel Nautilus, the robot-equipped research ship of Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard, they knew they were in for surprises, but they didn't realize how big.

Thirty to 40 kilometers off the coast of Tel Aviv, in an area once thought to be relatively barren of sea life, the explorers discovered a huge reef of deep-sea coral stretching for several kilometers, some 700 meters under the sea.

"It's like finding a flourishing oasis in the middle of the desert," said Dr. Yizhaq Makovsky, who directed the University of Haifa control center for the project. "We did not expect, know, or even imagine that we would come across these reefs and certainly not such large ones."

It's a discovery that has broad scientific importance, and is just one of many discoveries the team of 11 Israeli experts from the University of Haifa's School of Marine Sciences (CSMS), are beginning to make as they sift through the material they filmed during their voyage on the Nautilus, which ended on September 14.

Sending the ship's robots down as far as 1.7 kilometers into the Mediterranean they discovered underwater landslide scars, deep-sea corals, ancient archaeological artifacts, gas seeps, submarine canyons, exotic creatures, and even a couple of shipwrecks - probably modern boats that sank over the past few decades.

Researchers say one of the most fascinating fish captured by the ship's cameras was the Chimera Monstrosa, a member of the "ghost sharks" family that branched off from sharks some 400 million years ago.

The crew used sonar to scan the ocean floor and identify targets to explore further. Then they lowered a robotic device dubbed Argus, out of which emerged another robot, Hercules, whose job it is to gather samples.

At the helm of the expedition was Ballard's longtime marine geophysics colleague, Israel Prize winner Prof. Zvi Ben-Avraham, founding director of Haifa University's School of Marine Sciences. He and a cadre of faculty and graduate students joined the existing Nautilus crew as part of the pilot project for a planned multi-year cooperation program.

"It's as if one morning I would call you and say, 'Today you're going for two weeks to Mars.' What would you expect to find there?" Dr. Uri Schattner, incoming department head of marine geoscience at CSMS tells ISRAEL21c.

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