Expedition will explore hills in the marine bottom of the country

Taken from: www.nacion.com

At some 500 kilometers from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, at the bottom of the sea, lie submerged hills of great natural wealth that have never been explored. Two of them, called Las Gemelas, will be studied for the first time by various marine explorers in order to discover how was life in the ocean before human intervention.

The National Geographic organization is in charge of the expedition and counts on a team of 15 investigators from Mexico, New Zealand, United States, Costa Rica and Spain. Its objective is to give light to the mysteries around the biodiversity of this zone and to study the health state of Cocos Island.

The crew will remain until October 1st in the island. According to a report of The Nature Conservancy, Las Gemelas probably have a great natural wealth. However, they remain unprotected. Enric Sala, a Spanish marine ecologist that is heading the expedition, commented that one of their objectives is to describe the present ecosystems in these hills.

"This is a pure exploration; Las Gemelas hills are part of the last unexplored places of the world and, along with the Cocos Island, are jewels in the sea", indicated Sala. According to this explorer, there is a great possibility that this study will obtain data of probably unknown species, and the information obtained will be put at the disposal of the authorities to determine its eventual protection.

Sala explained that the Las Gemelas are part of Cocos Dorsal Number, which extends since the Galapagos Islands to the Osa peninsula. These mounts have their upper part only 250 meters deep, but they are at least 2,000 meters under the sea. "The expedition counts on two vessels that will remain near the Island and of the hills, respectively. A submarine will permit us to descend up to 400 meters to study the diversity of Las Gemelas", mentioned Sala.

Jorge Cortez, one of the Costa Rican investigators of the crew, will be the only scientist to collect samples from these mounts. "We will take care of the collectin of a series of corals and we will classify them to determine if any unknown species exist.”affirmed Cortez. The data obtained in the expedition will be published in the blog of Ocean Now (http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/blog/) that will be brought up to date periodically.