Ship time of the R/V Urania was provided by CNR upon request of ISMAR. The application for clearances to perform the geophysical survey in the Marmara Sea and Gulf of Saros and the plan of the cruise were submitted to the Turkish embassy in Rome early 2005 as well as to the Italian Embassy in Ankara, upon confirmation of Cruise scheduling for September 2005. Turkish authorization was released to the R/V Urania through the Italian Embassy in Ankara on early august-2005.
The survey was planned to carry out the following tasks
The areas to investigate were :
In addition to these main targets, we also planned to investigate the continental shelf from Gaziköy to Büyükçekmece, and SE of Istanbul (Prince Islands to Tuzla Gulf), to map possible active faults. During transit to the Dardanelles Strait the submarine canyon north of Imrali Island was also investigated.
Furthermore, a malacological study was planned in order to obtain a better knowledge of the Sea of Marmara sediments, in particular in the Izmit Gulf, with the target of identifying associations related to the deformation patterns caused by the NAF.
The accurate bathymetric DTMs, DGPS positioning and ship's capabilities to keep position on station were used also to recover cores strategically positioned along the CHIRP-SBP profiles that crossed the faults. Some cores were also taken for stratigraphic control. A particular focus was put on areas 1,2 and 3, which lie directly on the Northern and Central strands of the NAF.