İnönü vessel becomes hope in fight against mucilage in Marmara Sea

ISTANBUL

With no signs of mucilage and the reproduction of an endangered species, the submerged İnönü vessel has become a light of hope to experts that the Marmara Sea is “not dying.”

The İnönü vessel, which was submerged in 2013 off the northwestern province of Kocaeli’s Karamürsel district, was covered with heavy layers of mucilage in June 2021.

Turkish media outlets headlined the vessel “Ghost-ship,” as a team of divers could not reach it or take clear photographs.

The same team dived down to the vessel once again this June and came to the surface with two pieces of good news.

According to the experts, “there were no signs of mucilage on the vessel submerged some 24 meters below the surface” and an endangered species, pinna nobilis, was detected on the vessel.

Pinna nobilis, commonly known as fan mussel, is a marine bivalve mollusk producing a rare manganese-containing porphyrin protein known as pinnaglobin.

“The species existed in the Marmara Sea, but seeing it in the İzmit Gulf was a first, and welcome news,” Halim Aytekin Ergül, an academic from Kocaeli University told daily Milliyet.

Following mass mortality, the International Nature Protecxtion Association had taken pinna nobilis under preservation in 2019.

Mucilage, a thick and slimy substance made up of compounds released by marine organisms, surfaced on the Marmara Sea in May 2021, and invaded a large area the proceeding June, alarming marine biologists and environmentalists.

The government is taking actions to prevent the reemergence of mucilage and other measures to keep the Marmara Sea clean.