According to the company’s expedition program, Ocean Gates Expeditions, whose underwater Titan went missing, has scheduled a tourist expedition to the Azores in May 2024 to observe hydrothermal vents.
The three-day expedition to the Azores included diving aboard the submersible Titan, which went missing in the North Atlantic on Sunday while descending to visit the wreck of the Titanic at a depth of about 3,800 meters.
A search and rescue operation to search for and recover a submersible carrying five people entered a critical phase this Thursday as oxygen supplies run out.
When advertising a trip to the Azores, the company considers “the deep waters of the archipelago to be truly one of the best diving spots in the world.”
The company highlights the archipelago’s “diversity of deep sea corals, one of the most diverse whale populations in the world, and the bizarre life forms that surround the hydrothermal vents” as attractions in the archipelago.
“While the Azores have been popular with scuba divers for decades, exploration of the area during a deep dive on OceanGate’s Titan submersible will usher in a new era of exploration of this underwater gem,” the company said in a statement.
The Azores have become one of the world’s centers for scientific research and scientific tourism due to the richness of their marine ecosystems, including the Lucky Strike hydrothermal field.
In June 2018, a scientific expedition off the coast of the Azores discovered a new hydrothermal field, the first exclusively by the Portuguese method, and also the shallowest of all eight known deposits in the Azores.
Lusa tried to get a comment from Ocean Gates Expeditions about the Azores expedition, but was unsuccessful.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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