GEOSTAR: a GEophysical and Oceanographic STation for Abyssal Research

The GEOSTAR is a technological and scientific project aimed at the realisation of an autonomous benthic observatory able to perform long-term, continuous and integrated geophysical and environmental measurements in deep seafloors. The observatory is conceived to be a node of existing and future geophysical monitoring networks, making possible their extension offshore. The GEOSTAR observatory prototype hosts sensors for seismic, geomagnetic, gravimetric, geochemical and oceanographic researches up to abyssal depths (4000 m). The first I-year scientific mission is foreseen within the end of the millennium in the abyssal plain (3400 m) of the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, where key information about the geodynamics and oceanography of the whole Mediterranean basin can be acquired. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.