Scientists have inaugurated a new research platform, the Laboratoire Sous-marin Provence Méditerranée (LSPM), located 40 km off the coast of Toulon and 2,450 m below sea level. The LSPM was inaugurated in Marseille on February 24, 2023, in the presence of AMU President Eric Berton, Centre IFREMER Méditerranée Vice Director Bruno Andral, and CNRS Chairman and CEO Antoine Petit.The LSPM is a collaboration between the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Aix-Marseille University (AMU), and the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER). It is a pioneering platform that houses equipment for studying the seabed, climate change, and the physics of neutrinos, elementary particles from space.
Investigating Undersea Unknowns
The LSPM’s main instrument is KM3NeT1, a giant neutrino detector developed by a team of 250 researchers from 17 countries. The KM3NeT1 will study the trails of bluish light that neutrinos leave in the water. The detector can detect dozens of particles every day, which will help scientists understand their quantum properties, still largely unknown.
Besides KM3NeT1, the LSPM has other instruments to enable researchers to study the life and chemistry of the deep sea. The tools allow researchers to gain insight into ocean acidification, deep-sea deoxygenation, marine radioactivity, and seismicity, and enable them to track cetacean populations and observe bioluminescent animals. This oceanographic instrumentation is part of the subsea observatory network of the EMSO2 European research infrastructure.
The LSPM’s Features
The LSPM is built around a series of titanium junction boxes and intelligent systems that can power multiple scientific instruments and retrieve their data in real-time, thanks to a 42-km-long electro-optical cable. Currently, the base has three junction boxes, but the future addition of a second cable could bring the number up to five.
Laboratoire Sous-marin Provence Méditerranée is a significant development for researchers. It is a unique platform that will allow scientists to investigate undersea unknowns while paving the way for new discoveries in the world of oceanography and physics.
