PER24 – Pollutants’ Environmental Research 2024 – Cruise Final Report

Anthropic impact on coastal areas led to the input of contaminants from land to the deep sea, both legacy (e.g., heavy metals, PAHs, NPs), and emerging (e.g., PFASs, PPCPs, BPA). These pollutants impact both marine and benthic ecosystems, entering the biogeochemical cycles. From the 11th to the 28th of October 2024 (departure/arrival port: Bari, Italy, Southern Adriatic Sea), the Italian National Research Council completed the PER24 expedition, on board the R/V “Gaia Blu”, expanding the area surveyed in 2016 with the PERTRE campaign. The operations included the collection of 1784 sediment samples (ranging in depth from 0 to 44 cm) by means of a cylindrical box corer. After sampling, sediments were treated on board and stored. The PER24 campaign also conducted acoustic surveys (i.e. MBES - 394 transects, CHIRP-SBP - 37 transects, L-ACDP - 51 acquisitions) and the physico-chemical water characterization (i.e. CTD - 60 stations with 7 repetitions) to investigate geomorphology of the seafloor, transport mechanisms (e.g., currents), and water column profile variation. Planned analyses comprise biogeochemical analysis, C and N stable isotopes measurements, organic and inorganic pollutant determination, microbiological composition, foraminiferal association, stratigraphic and geochronological analysis.