MEDITERRANEAN PLANET
- 28 days at saturation
- 400 hours of immersion between -60 and -144m
- 21 sites visited between Marseille and Monaco
In 2019, Laurent achieved a world first by successfully combining saturation diving, initially dedicated to offshore operations, with electronically managed rebreather diving techniques to illustrate the deep ecosystems typical of the Mediterranean, and to set up scientific protocols at these depths.
Together with three other divers, Antonin Guilbert, Yanick Gentil and Thibault Rauby, they lived in a 5m2 module pressurized to 13 bars, equivalent to -120m depth, for 28 days. Every day, they went out to freely explore and study the twilight zone between 60 and 140 meters below the surface, from Marseille to Monaco, with no time limits.
- The expedition focused on 3 main areas
Scientific research: Difficult to access and complicated to study, the seabed and coralligenous reefs are little known to biologists. Yet, under the ecological impact of mankind, these reefs have become refuges for biodiversity. Scientists have implemented numerous research and data collection protocols, some of them carried out for the first time at great depths: mapping, ecosystem analysis, rare species research (eDNA), bioacoustics, pollution level studies and photogrammetry.
Performance : The 4 divers stayed in a pressurized module for 28 days. While saturation diving made the project viable, it remains an extreme environment for humans (breathing an unusual gas mixture of up to 98% helium and only 2% oxygen).
Never-before-seen images: photographic reports, illustration of species in their environment for the first time, production of a 90′ documentary for the ARTE channel, and an art book “Planète Méditerranée” ed. Andromède Collection.
