Ship time of the R/V Urania was provided by CNR upon request of IGM. The final cruise planning started soon after a pre-cruise meeting in Bologna (March 2001).The application for clearances to perform the geophysical survey in the Marmara Sea and the plan of the cruise were submitted to the Turkish embassy in Rome March 2001 as well as to the Italian Embassy in Ankara. Turkish authorization was released to the R/V Urania through the Italian Embassy in Ankara on 22-May-2001. During the month of May-2001 and extensive work was done at IGM for the refurbishing and preparation of the instruments (Multichannel Seismic, Computer Network, etc). In addition to this, the installation of the Multibeam on the hull of the Urania was scheduled and designed.