The Instituto Español de Oceanografía (IEO) has installed a new mooring whose purpose is to restore the Ibiza channel Hydrochanges mooring that was "temporarily interrupted".

The mooring, funded by the IRIS-SES pilot project (http://iris-ses.eu/), was deployed during the cruise PERSEUS-0614 on board of the R/V SOCIB the 12th of June, 2014. It is placed at 39º 03.733 N, 00º 27.745 E, at 860 m depth, in the continental slope at the north of the Ibiza channel. This point has been sampled by the IEO group previously from February 1997 to April 1998 within the CANALES_97-98 project and from June 2004 to February 2005 within the CIRBAL-IEO monitoring program. It consists of an Aquadopp currentmeter and a SBE37 CTD at 18-20 m from the bottom. The mooring maintenance is planned to be every 6 months within the RADMED-IEO monitoring program.

The RADMED-IEO Mediterranean environmental monitoring program samples seasonally several transects along the Spanish Mediterranean waters, including the Balearic channels (http://www.ma.ieo.es/gcc/sistemas_observacion_ingles.htm). The sampling is fully multidisciplinary and its objective is to improve our knowledge about the health state of the Spanish Mediterranean environment and to detect oscillations and trends on a seasonal basis. It is the continuation of several regional programs like ECOCIRBAL running since the 90’s. All the historical data are actually available under the IBAMar regional database (http://www.ba.ieo.es/ibamar) and the Seadatanet database.

Mooring contacts:
Dr José Luis Lopez Jurado, IEO (Spain)
Dr Rosa Balbín, IEO (Spain)

CIESM Hydrochanges Program