The Footprints of the Wreckage of the Italian Royal Navy Battleship Leonardo Da Vinci on the Mar Piccolo Sea-Bottom (Taranto, Southern Italy)

Abstract

Over the last two decades, the scientific interest for marine geophysical surveys has shown a huge increase, mostly for multidisciplinary applicability on different studies, from historical heritage to environmental remediation. One of the main research fields carried out through marine geophysical surveys is the study of the wreckage footprints connected to the seabed perturbation. In 2018, a strategic project planned by the Italian National Government Commissioner for the remediation in the Taranto area (Southern Italy) stands as a basic sample for such issues. The project aimed at the detection of anthropogenic impact in the highly polluted Mar Piccolo and Mar Grande basins seabed, through a multidisciplinary approach involving geological, biological, chemical, engineering, and ecological studies. The main purpose of the work was to identify any potential pollution source, focusing on anthropogenic sea-floor features such as uncontrolled dumping, wrecks, or other objects of peculiar origin. To achieve the purpose of the work, field surveys were planned and performed in order to direct a general policy and accurate planning for environmental remediation activities. Different marine geophysics methods were used to characterize the main sea-floor features and to detect each anthropogenic feature. A comparative analysis of a high-resolution dataset allowed to clarify the origin of some deep depressions on the Mar Piccolo sea-bottom, which at the first instance were associated with a natural origin, as the results of the Leonardo Da Vinci wreckage and related recovering activities. High-resolution morphobathymetric, magnetometric, and seismic data revealed the story of the Italian Royal Navy battleship which sunk on 2 August 1916 as a slight footprint on the Mar Piccolo seabed but a deep historical heritage of the city of Taranto. Moreover, final results demonstrate high-resolution marine survey methodologies’ complete applicability to environmental, historical, and scientific issues.

Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Service Benefits and Welfare Impacts of Offshore Marine Protected Areas: A Study from the Baltic Sea

“…We conclude that limited environmental information and assessments for the offshore marine areas restricts the possibilities of using quantitative attribute levels. Information from geophysical and sedimentological surveys (see Madricardo et al 2019 [73]; De Giosa et al 2019 [74]; Scardino et al 2020 [75]) and more detailed assessment of the ES supply, using the field data, are relevant for solving these limitations.…”

Spatial Distribution of Trace Elements in Sub-Surficial Marine Sediments: New Insights from Bay I of the Mar Piccolo of Taranto (Southern Italy)

“…This condition, which characterizes mostly the southwestern sector (Figure 7b,c), is mainly due to the Sn and Hg concentrations. The presence of concentrations exceeding both site-specific and lower CSC values can be related to local phenomena of mixing of the most superficial, unconsolidated soft sediments [61], due mostly to the maritime activities carried out in the basin, whose impacts are also evident from the analysis of the morpho-bathymetric data [42,62,63] To define the thickness and the main geometries of the Holocene sedimentary units, the sub-bottom profiles were accurately interpreted. In particular, SBP data (Figure 8) allowed to highlight the presence of a reflector parallel to the seabed, which can be interpreted as the lower limit of the most recent, coarser, non-stratified, and less consistent sediments.…”

A set of guidelines as support for the integrated geo-environmental characterization of highly contaminated coastal sites

“…The potential 3D extent of the contamination can be reconstructed by the interpretation of SBP data, from which the seismic facies limits and the internal reflectors can be recognized allowing the correlation between specific lithology and corresponding lithofacies 89 . Similarly, the exploitation of morpho-acoustic datasets (SSS and MBES data) for the identification and mapping of traces and large litter items on the seafloor highlights the remarkable usefulness of marine surveys for the integrated characterization of marine environments 5 , 60 , 111 . This latter aspect allows to state that the efforts required for performing high-resolution marine morpho-acoustic data can be exploited for a dual purpose and therefore, such kind of data have a high suitability in supporting the geo-environmental characterization of coastal sites 17 .…”