This dataset provides information on the second expedition conducted by the RAMOGE agreement in 2018. Established in 1976, the RAMOGE Agreement enables the 3 member countries (France, Italy and the Principality of Monaco) to implement joint and coordinated actions to limit marine pollution and preserve the coastline and marine environment between Marseille (France) and La Spezia (Italy), fully including the Southern region (France) and Ligurian regions (Italy), as well as the Principality of Monaco. This Agreement is part of the Barcelona Convention. With over forty years of existence, it is a symbol of sub-regional cooperation and solidarity for the preservation of the Mediterranean.

This exploration was organized using France’s maritime resources in 2018, with R/V ATALANTE and ROV Victor 6000. Seven dives were conducted to explore Cannes canyons and Mejean shoal in France, Monaco canyon in the Principality of Monaco and Ulisse, Janua and Spinola seamounts in Italy. All these explorations covered approximately 41 km, recorded 53 h 27 min of video and documented 2217 events at depths ranging from 358 m to 2194 m.

Metadatas :

• Events : ID unique of the observations
• Dive name : name of the dive. Composed by sites, names of ROV, dive number of the mission and the date
• Area explored name : toponymy of area
• Exploration vehicle name : name of the vehicle used to conduct the exploration
• Exploration vehicle type : type of vehicle used to conduct the exploration
• Exploration vehicle owner : owner of the vehicle used to conduct the exploration
• Date : date of the observation (mm/dd/yyyy)
• Time : time of the observation (hh :mm :ss)
• Latitude : latitude in degrees (WGS84)
• Longitude : longitude in degrees (WGS84)
• Depth : depth of the observation
• Data source : nature of equipment served to describe the observation (video or picture)
• Landscape : qualitative description of the landscape complexity
• Slope : qualitative description of the slope
• Substratum : qualitative description of the substratum
• Typology of habitats : typology of habitats described in the context of the Barcelona Convention (Montefalcone et al., 2022). The description of habitat is defined at level 3 or 4.
• Facies : typology of habitats described in the context of the Barcelona Convention (Montefalcone et al., 2022). The description of facies is defined at level 5 of the typology when it’s possible.
• Waste : qualitative description of the waste when a waste is observed
• Specific action : description of action realized with the vehicle (i.e. start of exploration, sampling)
• Other description : other description about landscape, non taxa observation
• Taxa : identification of the observation to the most accurate taxa
• Clear determination : Right if identification is sure ; False if identification is uncertained
• Abundance : number of individuals or wastes observed

Equipment :

• R/V ATALANTE
• ROV Victor 6000
• Full HD video and photo camera 3CCD
• 4k video camera
• Sonar EM 12 D Kongsberg Simrad
• Widlife Vacuum
• Sediment corers (diameter = 53 mm & 400 mm)

Video derushing carried out by : Rouanet E. and Schohn T.