The last is underway off the coast of Wallis and Futuna

The MoMarsat mission scientists, who have left this weekend for the South of the Azores, found a nickname of circumstance in their campaign: "The" Secret Story"from the deep", a reference to the reality TV show. The analogy is striking: installed by 1700 meters of water on the mid-Atlantic Ridge, in the heart of a hydrothermal vents discovered a few years, standard sensor cameras follow a year, 24 hours a day, the intimacy of the inhabitants of this oasis of life. "We hope as many of these images as if they had asked our cameras on the far side of the Moon", summarizes Jozée Sarrazin, environmental officer at the Department for the study of deep ecosystems at Ifremer, one of the agencies involved in this part of the European programme Esonet. Its goal: be the first global network of permanent observatories at the bottom of the seas.

"Science gaps".

This initiative is not an exception. Driven by the understanding of the terrestrial thermal mechanisms and the need to enrich simulation of climate models, ocean research has renewed interest and means on the planet. "Science was able to measure on this occasion the extent of its shortcomings on the knowledge of the environment", recognizes Etienne Ruellan, Director of the technical division of the national Institute of sciences of the universe.

The base of the continental slope at the greatest depths known (11.500 metres in the Mariana Trench), the oceans cover 80 of the area of the Seabed (307 million square kilometres) and 65 of the surface of the globe, which were ignored by scientists because of the desert of lives that suggested his extreme conditions: high hydrostatic pressuretemperatures below 4 C, dark prohibiting any mechanism of photosynthetic production, nutrient inputs limited to dead comparably surface... "Put end to end, our geographical knowledge of the abyss are ultimately on a plan of Paris", summarizes Yves Auffret, responsible of the laboratory of geochemistry and Metallogeny at Ifremer.

Fascinated by the unknown, researchers from all disciplines therefore invest this medium: biologists, geologists, but also mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, chemists... "Succession is the Rendez-vous", notes Ivan Dekeyser, Director of the Centre of Oceanology of Marseilles, which saves 10-15 of additional students annually. To welcome them, his laboratory will benefit from 30 million euros of investment on the part of the State and Europe for the construction of a new platform for research and training, according to him, evidence that it goes there to "area on the border between basic science and society issues".

The topics that particularly interest scientists at the bottom of the water have resonances in our daily lives. By observing "extremophiles" species, which are based on the chemosynthesis to survive at depths that crush all, the European programme Amores researchers hope for example find interesting answers to some problems of pollution: the conditions prevailing in Springs where they thrive - absence of oxygen, high levels of sulfide hydrogen and high concentrations of heavy metals - arein effect, similar to certain States of pollution in coastal waters in Europe.

Rare metal mines

Geologists were interested also to discoveries that they could be at the bottom of the oceans. Yves Auffret is one of those who study these new metal sulphide-rich veins. "The chimneys of the hot springs create by the precipitation of elements chemical such as copper, zinc, gold, silver, present very significant concentrations in the ejected water of tectonic faults, he explains." They grow up and then collapsing on the mound of debris cycle sometimes feeds from tens of thousands of years. So it is likely that some of these mines reach thicknesses of dozens, even hundreds of metres.

Who are these veins Here again, the answer is provided by ocean research, which can precisely draw the underwater frontiers of States by drawing the limits of the continental shelf. The France, for example, filed at the United Nations a request for extension of its boundaries, in metropolitan France and in overseas. Since 2000, 16 missions were conducted to support its claims. The last is underway off the coast of Wallis and Futuna. "The claimed area is relatively deep (beyond 2,500, or even 3,000 metres deep), little known and relatively small compared to other extensions claimed by the France, explains Walter Roest, responsible for the program Extraplac overseeing these missions to the Marine Geoscience Department of Ifremer.". But the goals remain the same: presence in the Pacific, regional cooperation, protection of the ecosystem and biodiversity, creation of marine protected areas and opportunity to explore the soil and subsoil resources.

Hence the strategic weight of the scientific record: by providing evidence of the continuity of its continental shelf, a country can claim sovereignty over the reservoir of the living and fossil and mineral resources of operation up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) offshore. Beyond that, it must share with the International Seabed Authority, which manages the major funds on behalf of humanity.