German research vessel to come to Cyprus

The German research vessel Maria S. MERIAN will visit for the first time the port of Limassol, which will be its main berth for a number of subsequent cruises from October 2009 to May 2010.

According to a press release, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, the University of Hamburg and their European colleagues investigate the deep-sea of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea.

In the framework of their expedition, the German research vessel Maria S. MERIAN visits for the first time the port of Limassol in Cyprus on 22 October 2009.

The Maria S. MERIAN is one of the most modern multidisciplinary vessels of the European research fleet.

The main research objective of the current expedition led by chief scientists Dr. Dagmar Hainbucher (University of Hamburg) and Prof. Dr. Antje Boetius (Max Planck Institute Bremen) is to understand the dynamics of the Eastern Mediterranean Deep Sea, from climate change effects on deep-water formation to the distribution of enigmatic deep-sea ecosystems.