Report | December 15, 2018
Deep-Sea Lebanon Results of the 2016 Expedition: Exploring Submarine Canyons
The Mediterranean Sea is a semi-enclosed basin, surrounded by 21 African, Asian, and European states. It extends over an area of 2.5 million km and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean though the Strait of Gibraltar, to the Black Sea through the Dardanelles and Bosforus Straits, and to the Red Sea through the artificially opened Suez Canal. When compared to the average depth of the world’s oceans (3733 m), the Mediterranean Sea is relatively shallow, with a mean depth of ca. 1650 m, yet it is the deepest of the enclosed seas. The entire Mediterranean Sea is considered a biodiversity hotspot, hosting up to 18% of the global total of macroscopic species (in less than 1% of the global ocean surface), with 25% to 30% of them considered endemic.