Think of a map of the Mediterranean Sea. You are likely to picture the usual bird-view of the region, with the known land features revolving around a blank space divided in two by the boot of Italy. This is the Mediterranean of historians and anthropologists, including those with an interest in the role of the environment in history. Fernand Braudel’s seminal history of the Mediterranean area most notably included the environment as an agent of history, but considered the Mediterranean Sea as an immutable stage that shaped modes of production and commerce. For Braudel, the maritime routes enabled by surface currents gave way to the connectivity that defined the Mediterranean as a historical space but his sea remained a "surface," a "plain," and a "plateau."
Now, think of how the Mediterranean Sea looks to environmental and marine scientists dealing with the multiple processes below the surface that shape the Mediterranean environment. Their Mediterranean is no longer a blank space. Instead, depth takes center stage. The column of water becomes full of color, tones, and connections. Temperature drops and rises and salinity reveals a lively dance of bodies of water activated by gradients of pressure and convection cycles. Particles of CO2 are captured at the atmospheric layer by phytoplankton, which feeds zooplankton, fish, and marine mammals. A good number of these particles get stored at the bottom. Ocean and atmospheric geochemistry coevolve with the aquatic food chain. With depths up to five thousand meters, scientists often referred to the Mediterranean Sea as a miniature ocean, a laboratory where one can track global change at a regional scale.
Descend a little further down the column of water, and you'll hit the mountainous bottom. The boot of Italy now becomes the steep ridge of the Strait of Sicily, which divides and connects two distinct bodies of water. Scientists are only beginning to understand the interactions between biochemical processes in the water and the geological composition of the bottom, both in current times and in the deep past–for instance, when the Mediterranean Sea almost became a dessert during the Messinian-salinity crisis. Scientists are also learning about the productive potential of volcanic fumaroles in sustaining local ecosystems near the seabed. Countries and companies extract gas and oil and prospect for the rare earth and other elements on the bottom and beneath it. Underground exploration adds an extra level to this multilayered sea environment.
DEEPMED tracks the historical transformation of the Mediterranean environment from surface to volume. The Mediterranean Sea environment—like any other environment—is historic in at least two senses. The first is that the physical and biogeochemical environment changes through time. The second is that the perceptions of this environment attach new meanings and scope to it as a factor of cultural, technological, and scientific practices. Both senses are, of course, intimately related, mainly because humans are also a factor of environmental change. This means that historical practices and imaginations can play various roles in the physical evolution of the Mediterranean environment–and of any other environment, except in this case, with remarkable intensity and significant specificities. DEEPMED delves into how the Mediterranean environment came to be in these two senses–both as a concept and a reality.
