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August 18, 2009

Chipiona (Cádiz), Third ROV dives. Tuesday, August 18, 2009

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©OCEANA/ Carlos Minguell

 

Yet another day the sea is respecting us and showing us a small bit of calm. Today we went to an area just a little northward of the place we analyzed yesterday. We sampled sea bottoms with a depth of between 25 and 35 meters at different distances from the coast, from 5 to 8 miles. First we did some transects with the ROV and then we took some samples with a van Veen dredger.

All of the spots we have looked at have a compact mud which bears different types of worms, angular crabs (Goneplax rhomboides) and remains of mollusks: cockles (Acanthocardia sp.), little clams (Thracia cf. villosiuscula), horny augurs (Turritella comunis), etc. We have been able to thoroughly observe one of these crabs because it turned up in one of the dredgers. They live on very shallow bottoms up to places below 500 meters and they burrow galleries in the mud.

Elsewhere, we have changed sea bottoms with the divers. We came a little more than one mile from the coast. The submersion took place on a rocky bottom covered with sediment. Visibility is low as well. Nevertheless, different sea fans, hydrozoa, sea squirts, etc. can be seen as well as some fishes such as red-banded sea bream (Sparus auriga) or two-banded bream (Diplodus vulgaris).