The Bridges expedition, from the Gaia Blu spacecraft of the National Research Council, has begun: it will search for vestiges of the ancient land bridge that makes 22,000 yearswhen sea level was about 120 meters lower than the current one, connected the southeast of Sicily with the islands of Malta and the neighboring island of Gozo.
This was an authentic natural corridor that animals, and perhaps the first humansthey could have used to move between both regions, facilitating migratory flows.
The goal is to identify what remains of this now submerged strip of land.
The research campaign is a collaboration between the CNR Institute of Marine Sciences, the National Institute of Oceanography and Experimental Geophysics (OGS) and the University of Malta.
The researchers, coordinated by Maria Filomena Loreto, from CNR-Ismar, and Emanuele Lodolo, from OGS, will use innovative mapping equipment on board the ship, allowing them to understand the morphology of the current and past seabed, and identify ancient coastlines.
They will also collect sediment samples that will help determine when and for how long the strip of land was navigable, as well as identify any signs of the passage of living organisms.
ANSA Agency.
GML
