MARINE & GEOTECHNICAL SURVEY ITALY - MALTA PRE-LAY CABLE SURVEY

The Telecommunication Company MALTA GO was planning to install a fibre optic submarine telecommunication link between Sicily (Italy) and Malta Island. MSS International Ltd. (MSS) was commissioned by Elettra TLC S.p.a., for positioning and survey services to develop the project of the “Pre-Lay Cable Survey”. R/V OGS Explora Survey Vessels has been involved in the project. The theoretical route is located in the Sicily Strait, where the landing point (LP) have been identified as follow: Mazara del Vallo: Seaside road Fata Morgana Malta: Saint Paul's Bay The proposed Cable lies along specific sites: the Graham Bank, the Terrible Bank, the Gela Basin, that is southward limitated by the Malta Graben and end in the Malta Plateau Must to be notice that the volcanic activities, that in the past was recorded only in the Graham Bank, in the last years was noted also in the Terrible Bank (gas). This geophysical survey was undertaken on R/V OGS Explora with Sonar Equipment Services LTD Sea Probe (combo SSS-SBP), KONGSBERG EA 600 Hydrographic Single Beam Echosounder, RESON Seabat 8111, RESON Seabat 8150. The sonar on-line acquisition system was In House Software from Sonar Equipment Services, while the off-line processing system was Coda Mosaic. Upon completion of the survey lines, some selected sites were sampled with the use of a gravity corer and a grab sampler to help with the interpretation of the geophysical data collected as request in the SOW.