It was one of the keynote speeches at the Science Outreach Meeting for the Futures Conference this year The ability of innovations being made in Chile to surprise Almost the same as those performed internationally.
The third day of the Future Conference was a block entirely dedicated to talking about the future of our oceans. There it was possible to meet Two Chilean projects are expanding what we know about the sea and applying it to human and animal life.
Where does the earthquake start?
It was Osvaldo Ulloa The first person to descend at a depth of 8,000 meters from the Atacama Trench. There he discovered a new species and also found two plastic bags, which had reached those waters even before anyone else.
It is in these depths where the researcher, the manager The Millennium Oceanographic Institution of the University of Concepción is leading a project for Installing geodetic sensors on the sea floor to enhance knowledge of earthquakes and tsunamis, And in the end they were able to predict it.
The Atacama Trench arose from the collapse of the Nazca Plate under the South American Plate. It is this process that causes the seismic activity that Chile is famous for. Because This place serves as a laboratory to better understand these phenomena.
Buoys and whales
Another Chilean innovation that caught the world’s attention last year and that was unveiled at the Future Conference is the Blue Boat Initiative, in which the MERI Foundation is working with the Ministry of the Environment to Installing smart buoys that allow identification of whales, their location and species, and send an alert to ships So that there are no collisions.
In October 2022, the first buoy of this project was installed, which will create a continuous early warning system for ships that You will also collect data on the behavior of whales and the ecosystem services they provide.
