Understanding whether slow slip along fault boundaries is likely to eventually cause a high-magnitude earthquake is essential in assessing seismic hazards. A study recently published by Ifremer in the journal Nature Communications clearly characterizes the phenomena associated with slow earthquakes further to the analysis of water pressure in marine sediments.
The deep-sea is the largest ecosystem on Earth. It harbours an impressive biodiversity and provides a great amount of resources yet, it is also the least explored and understood. There is an urgent need of rapid technological developments to access, investigate, understand and protect this unique and remote environment. Furthermore, in the last few years anthropogenic pressures in the deep sea raised exponentially and we are all aware that the deep sea is a treasure of biodiversity, resources and the last frontier on Earth for biomimicry.
Similar to a space station, in 2010 the EMSO Açores scientific observatory was deployed 1700 m onto underwater mountain ranges and volcanos in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The oceanographic vessel Pourquoi Pas ? (Why not?) has been stationed since 13th September to conduct the annual maintenance of this battery of technologies (Momarsat campaign, coordinated by Ifremer and the CNRS).
Following the detection of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater in Paris and the Great East area, Ifremer is now looking into the possible contamination of wastewater by the virus by carrying out a series of samples at three treatment plants in the Great West area. While the study of these samples confirms the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 genome in 9 out of 13 wastewater samples, new analyzes also confirm the absence of any trace of the virus in shellfish.