(Marta Madina / 10-08-10) In the Mallorca channel, between this island and Formentera and Ibiza, there are the seamounts Ses Olives, Ausias March and Emile Baudot. Although they have been sampled areas of great importance for species and sensitive habitats, their bottoms are quite unknown.

During the last four years Oceana, along with Fundación Biodiversidad, has carried out some researches in those mountains that have proven the importance of them as they have been identified over 300 different species among fishes and a very wide variety of invertebrate animals, figures that could rise significantly during the current campaign.

It has to be highlighted that the seamounts Ses Olives, Ausias March and Emile Baudot preserve in good conditions ecosystems and marine communities that have disappeared or are disappearing in other areas of the Mediterranean sea, such as sponges, gorgonians, black corals or maërl and coralligenous funds among others.

During this year, Oceana is going to sample also the deepest areas, up to 700 m., in an area over 250,000 ha in which they are included, besides the seamounts, other geological formations in the Mallorca channel, such as  many volcanic pinnacles next to Emile Baudot or a wide field of pockmarks located between Ausias March and Ses Olives.

The goal is to get new data about species and habitats that can be of great importance for the health of the Mediterranean sea, such as Bamboo corals, giant feathers or feather star fields, and getting more information about the distribution of some species that are protected for being threatened or endangered, such as triton shells or carnivorous sponges.

The importance of the seamounts, considered as the ocean oases, has been recognized globally, thus a lot of protected marine areas have been created for their conservation in the oceans worldwide.

In the Mediterranean, where there are many seamounts, almost all of them are still unprotected. Just one of them, Erathostenes seamount, south Chipre, has been declared a restricted fishing area by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM), although this figure does not imply complete protection because it is focused mainly on the conservation of fishery resources.

The mountains of the Balearic Islands are one of the most prominent, relevant and with greater biodiversity elevations in the western Mediterranean, so they should be preserved in good conditions of preservation.

Protecting them would mean the creation of the first protected marine area for seamounts in the Mediterranean, taking a huge step in the maintenance, conservation and recovery of Mediterranean marine biodiversity to which all riparian countries, Spain also, have committed.