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August 21, 2016

Pockmarks or grabs

BY: Jack Ravensberg

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After a night sailing on a pretty bumpy sea we arrived in Dutch waters, in the area named Gasfontijnen. In Dutch, this literally means ‘fountains of gas’, or the so-called ‘pockmarks’.

Pockmarks are craters in the seabed caused by gas and liquids erupting and streaming through the sediments.

At these pockmarks you can find some structures that look like coral structures. These structures are made by special ancient bacteria which can live in this environment. It takes thousands of years to build this special settlement.And it is a shame that a trawler can ruin this in only a few seconds. So therefore we should save these rare places in the North Sea by protecting them.

We wanted to look for these places today but because of the bad weather we couldn´t use the ROV. So we went to another area nearby called Oestergronden where were able to do several grabs and we hope that tomorrow we’ll be able to find these pockmarks with the ROV, that is, if they are not already destroyed.