There should be no human being who does not know the myth of Atlantis and its infinite variations, from Plato to Jules Verne: the legend of a great unknown civilization buried by the sea. Its relevance in cinema and literature is not surprising: from the Greeks to today, the sea and river beds continue to be the great unknowns of the planet’s geography. There is talk of an ultra-mapped world, but this superlative would be more appropriate for the Earth’s surface in particular. The aquatic depths of the earth continue on the margins of all maps.
We only know 30% of the planet we live on. Of the other 70%, made up of fresh water and salt water, we know very little. “Of the seabed, we only know 2%: the coastal areas and ports. The open sea is completely unknown, there is no precision cartography. In fact, volcanoes and new species are continually being discovered. Now we see that the largest plant reserve on earth is under water, in the Atlantic Ocean,” says José María Jiménez, hydrographer and member of ICTYS, a project born in Zaragoza that is dedicated to mapping the aquatic depths and that completes Miguel Rodríguez, materials expert, Enrique Lamana in charge of electronic communications.
After working for five years in Rotterdam and spending entire seasons, months on board in any corner of the world and months on land, the pandemic arrived and Jiménez decided to return home. And he saw that in Spain civil hydrography was a very underdeveloped path and found a gap through which to advance. Then, in Zaragoza Activa he met his future partners and the three began to incubate the ICTYS project, a name derived from the Greek word “ichtus” which means “fish”, and with which they proposed to build a boat to carry out topographical surveys of submerged surfaces (what is known as bathymetry) and measure water quality. They were very clear that they were beginning to develop a path little explored on the planet: mapping the aquatic depths, beginning to know them.
But the ship would arrive later, with the residency grant in Etopia, where they began to build it from scratch and finished it just before Natalia Chueca’s government dismantled the old art and technology center. Today ICTYS is constituted as a company, it has a location in the San José neighborhood and, after the pilot test in the San Lázaro well, the Archeology department of the Zaragoza City Council has become its main client for a vital discovery. importance to the history of the city.
The submerged heritage
The ICTYS ship is small and does not have a name yet. It is prepared to operate semi-submerged, with a length of 1500 mm, a beam of 300 mm, a draft of 800 mm and a weight of 60 kg. It has a dual-frequency probe and chip for bathymetric data, Side Scan Sonar for discovery of underwater structures and software for bottom characterization and fish detection.
At the end of August and beginning of September they did several tests with the boat on the Ebro River, specifically in the well of San Lazaro. And there they discovered some unknown structures six meters deep that are probably Roman. And although more tests and studies are needed, it is most likely the foundations of an ancient aqueduct. We have to wait until summer, when the river reduces its flow and current, so that the small boat can get in and navigate more easily.
Through a probe, the ship emits sound pulses to capture images. Inside the Ebro, with its enormous amount of particles and its darkness, everything is invisible. In fact, many times when firefighters went into that area, they knew there was something, but they were never able to see anything and there is no camera that can record something more or less visible. Therefore, these structures had never been catalogued.
“The images are taken with sound, the particles of the water do not affect them,” says Jiménez. “It is very similar to how images are captured with light, but instead of electromagnetic waves they are mechanical waves. Inside the water, electromagnetic waves diffuse, which is why nothing is seen. But with sound that doesn’t happen. In fact, whales communicate with sounds. We emit a wave and measure the time it takes to return it to know how far away the sound is and also the strength with which it returns it to you, so we can know what type of material it is, whether it is a hard or soft material. What we really do is illuminate the water with sound.”
In addition to discovering an unknown archaeological heritage of Zaragoza, the ship’s incursion into the San Lázaro well brought another piece of information: it is not a natural chasm but an artificial one and could be the remains of an ancient quarry.
DANA and the future of hydrography
After DANA, many people from Valencia contacted them through their web. Above all, relatives of missing people who wanted to know if the boat was submersible and could inspect garages. The boat is not submersible but the Civil Guard submariners told them that it would be great for them. “Until now, to discover corpses, they went through the Alfubera with sticks. It is very dirty water, with a lot of mud, and you can’t see anything,” explains Jiménez. But due to bureaucratic and permit issues, the ship has not moved from its location in the San José neighborhood in Zaragoza. “In theory, Civil Protection of Valencia is the one who has to request the means. And he still didn’t do it. The Hydrographic Institute sent ships, but they were very large, they were for the open sea. Ours has a very small draft,” says Jiménez, convinced that his boat is the only technology in Spain capable of helping to track bodies in difficult-to-access areas such as the Albufera.
Meanwhile, they are working in the Sotonera reservoir, a commission from the Civil Guard to carry out studies that will prevent in Aragon what happened in Valencia with the DANA. And for Sarga (Aragonese Environmental Management Society) in the location of the margaritifera, a protected clam that only grows in Aragon. And, little by little, they begin to expand the need for this relatively modern science that began to develop in World War II with the need to detect submarines. “When hydrography really exploded was in the 60s as a result of the Cold War,” says Jiménez, who to study the degree had to enroll in a Portuguese military institute, since still in 2011 in Spain only the military could study it.
Today the leading nation in hydrography is the Netherlands, where technology is highly evolved and there is a lot of investment. It is not strange, taking into account that almost a third of the country is below sea level, it is territory gained through infrastructure of an unprecedented magnitude. “Hydrography is very expensive, everything that involves being on a boat is very expensive. A hydrography boat can cost 200 thousand euros a day and is only invested in things that are very profitable, such as the oil industry or underwater wiring. Or war, of course,” explains Jiménez. And he talks about the blue economy, a recent trend that places the seas at the center of economic activity not only as commercial exploitation but also taking into account its sustainable impact: “At the end of the day, humans are riverside animals, we need water nearby, whether it is fresh water or salt water. But we also have to see how we interact with the sea and, for that, data and technology are needed that are completely different from what has been used until now. And that is the meaning of our project and all the trends are going there: autonomous tools that navigate the sea and collect data.”
That is, unmanned ships that can be managed remotely, reducing the high cost involved in the need for crew members. Ships that provide the data that humanity needs to stop seeing water as a means of transportation and consider it an end. And, in this way, begin to know its background.
Source: www.eldiario.es
