AEGAEO underwater cruise successfully completed

The R/V AEGAEO (Hellenic Centre for Marine Research) successfully completed an underwater survey in the Red Sea between 29 May and 13 June.

The survey was led by Dimitris Sakellariou as chief scientist, with Abdullah Alsharekh, Geoff Bailey, Garry Momber and Matt Meredith-Williams from the DISPERSE team, Salem al Nomani from the Saudi Geological Survey, and a 12-strong scientific team from HCMR. Survey methods included use of multi-beam bathymetry, side-scan sonar, airgun, sub-bottom profiling, coring, and the use of an ROV to map selected target areas in the vicinity of the Farasan Islands. In total the survey mapped an area of about 500 square kilometres of the seafloor with multi-beam bathymetry, a total length of 170 nautical miles (315 km) of airgun seismic profiles, 250 nautical miles (460 km) of 3.5kHz sub-bottom profiles and 140 nautical miles (260 km) of side-scan sonar tracks, recovered 20 gravity and box cores, and completed 5 dives of the ROV Max Rover.

Image shows the research team aboard the AEGAEO in Jeddah port at the end of the cruise.

Back Row: (L to R) Prokopis Mantopoulos, Matt Meredith-Williams, Ioannis Panagiotopoulos, Grigoris Rousakis, Leonidas Manousakis
Third Row: Panagiotis Renieris, Stefanos Kalogirou, Ioannis Pampidis, Ioannis Morfis
Second Row: Panos Georgiou, Manolis Kallergis, Dimitris Sakellariou, Geoff Bailey, Captain Kanakaris, Garry Momber
Front Row: Spyros Stavrakakis, Salem Al Nomani