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MAINBAZA: Deep-Sea Biodiversity Exploration off Mozambique
As part of the Total Foundation's support to research and education programmes to document and conserve marine biodiversity, the MAINBAZA expedition explored the continental margin off of Mozambique on board the Spanish vessel Vizconde de Eza. The expedition was a joint venture of the French National Museum of Natural History and of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography.
The expedition took place between April 9 and 17, and used
trawls and dredges to sample animal life living on the bottom at depths
between 100 and 1,800 meters. The Indian Ocean, and Mozambique in
particular, remain poorly known and, not unexepectedly, the expedition
discovered species new to science. The samples will be studied by an
international network of researchers under the umbrella of the Census of
Marine Life.