{"title":"Morris Kahn Marine Research Station - Israel","id":{"prefix":"https:\/\/deims.org\/","suffix":"a809bad4-f3d1-452b-ad29-0723a75501d6"},"type":"site","created":"2019-02-11T13:58:10+01:00","changed":"2025-05-12T12:21:16+02:00","attributes":{"affiliation":{"networks":[{"network":{"name":"GERI","id":{"prefix":"https:\/\/deims.org\/networks\/","suffix":"c3abdc60-49f1-49db-81fe-863b7dbb21d3"}},"siteCode":null,"verified":true},{"network":{"name":"LTER Europe","id":{"prefix":"https:\/\/deims.org\/networks\/","suffix":"4742ffca-65ac-4aae-815f-83738500a1fc"}},"siteCode":null,"verified":true},{"network":{"name":"LTER Israel","id":{"prefix":"https:\/\/deims.org\/networks\/","suffix":"e0f680c2-22b1-4424-bf54-58aa9b7476a0"}},"siteCode":null,"verified":true}],"projects":null},"contact":{"siteManager":[{"type":"person","name":"Ziv Zemah-Shamir","email":"zzemah@univ.haifa.ac.il","orcid":null}],"operatingOrganisation":null,"metadataProvider":[{"type":"person","name":"Hagi Nativ","email":"hagainativ@gmail.com","orcid":null}],"fundingAgency":null,"siteUrl":[{"title":"Israel LTER website","value":"https:\/\/lter-israel.org.il\/sdot-yam\/"},{"title":"Morris Kahn Marine Research Station","value":"https:\/\/med-lter.haifa.ac.il\/the-team\/"}]},"general":{"abstract":"The Morris Kahn Marine Research Station was established in order to provide baseline data and understanding of the marine ecological system in the Mediterranean Sea of Israeli coastal waters. \r\nThe Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa recently established a long-term ecological research station focusing on the eastern Mediterranean basin located in Kibbutz Sdot Yam, 44 km south of Haifa, near Caesarea. The station is called the Morris Kahn Marine Research Station and focuses on five main research topics;\r\n\u00b7 Top Predators \r\n\u00b7 Sediments\r\n\u00b7 Water composition (Biogeochemistry)\r\n\u00b7 Rocky Bottoms\r\n\u00b7 Fish Disease (pathogens)\r\nThe Israeli coastal area and the eastern Mediterranean Sea is experiencing accelerated development and infrastructure projects along the coastline, and a massive exploitation of marine resources never experienced in our region and nation. Coupled with the effects of global climate change and local polluting factors, life in the shallow and deep sea are changing rapidly. The Morris Kahn Marine Research Station is responsible for collecting biological and ecological data for long term research that will provide insight for understanding processes and predicting the effects of climate change and development on the environment. Such data will allow for science-based decisions that will greatly influence the interaction nature of future generations with the sea and the marine environment. This issue is particularly important given the fact that an majority of the water consumed in Israel is produced through desalinization of sea water, the main energy supply is based off of marine gas fields, aquaculture is gaining momentum as development allows for the cultivation of fish for human consumption in marine farms, and national projects referring to the sea as \u201cdevelopable land\u201d that can be dried and made into artificial islands for various infrastructures. In order to accompany such a momentum in development without the collapse of the ecosystem and destruction of the sea as a natural resource, there is a need to provide reliable and in depth understanding as to how the system works. \r\nTo accomplish these goals, the station employs top of the line researchers specializing in the Mediterranean as well as collaborate with other academic and research centres in Israel, while providing the best equipment for research and analysis of data collected from the sea including; \r\n\u00b7 Rosetta collecting water samples from different depths\r\n\u00b7 CTD device for measuring physical data of water\r\n\u00b7 Advanced underwater photography and documentation equipment\r\n\u00b7 Closed and controlled water system for aquaculture research\r\n\u00b7 Device for detecting and quantifying nutrients in the water (Seal AA3).\r\n\u00b7 Robot for measuring isotopes in samples (GC-IRMS-MS)\r\n\u00b7 Confocal microscopy\r\n\u00b7 Membrane mass spectrometer\r\n\u00b7 Servers for database backup and maintenance\r\n\u00b7 AAUS diving club performing scientific technical dives\r\n\u00b7 Closed dive systems to allow deep, long, and safe dives\r\n\u00b7 Boat used as a platform for diving and marine monitoring on the continental shelf\r\n\u00b7 Laboratories for dissection\r\n\u00b7 Work rooms for student and guest researchers\r\n\u00b7 Meeting\/conference rooms\r\n\u00b7 AUV and ROV (Marine technologies lab)\r\n\u00b7 THEMO buoy for deep sea research\r\n\u00b7 Drones and other aerial devices\r\n\u00b7 Website for sharing information as well as providing accessible information for the general public","citation":null,"relatedIdentifiers":null,"status":{"label":"Operational","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/elter_cl\/10772"},"yearEstablished":2015,"yearClosed":null,"relatedSites":null,"siteName":"Morris Kahn Marine Research Station","shortName":"MKMRS","siteType":"Stationary land-based site","protectionLevel":null,"landUse":null,"images":null},"environmentalCharacteristics":{"airTemperature":{"yearlyAverage":25,"monthlyAverage":[13,14,16,19,23,26,28,29,27,25,20,16],"unit":"\u00b0C","referencePeriod":null},"precipitation":{"yearlyAverage":null,"monthlyAverage":[10,10,8,5,2,0,0,0,0,3,7,11],"unit":"mm","referencePeriod":null},"biogeographicalRegion":null,"biome":"marine","ecosystemType":[{"label":"Marine","uri":null},{"label":"Temperate shelfs and seas","uri":null}],"eunisHabitat":[{"label":"Deep-sea bed (A6)","uri":null},{"label":"High energy littoral rock (A1.1)","uri":null},{"label":"Littoral mixed sediments (A2.4)","uri":null},{"label":"Littoral rock and other hard substrata (A1)","uri":null},{"label":"Littoral sand and muddy sand (A2.2)","uri":null},{"label":"Littoral sediment (A2)","uri":null},{"label":"Low energy littoral rock (A1.3)","uri":null},{"label":"Marine habitats (A)","uri":null},{"label":"Moderate energy littoral rock (A1.2)","uri":null},{"label":"Pelagic water column (A7)","uri":null},{"label":"Raised features of the deep-sea bed (A6.7)","uri":null},{"label":"Vertically stratified water column with full salinity (A7.9)","uri":null}],"landforms":null,"geoBonBiome":["Marine"],"geology":"While being a relatively very small country, Israel?s geology is quite varied and it displays many interesting geological phenomena. Outcrops of sedimentary rocks - both marine and terrigenous (land-formed) - span 10 geological periods, from the early Triassic period (which started 250 million years ago; outcrop is located in Makhtesh Ramon, see below) to the present. In the very southern part of the country, in the vicinity of Eilat, the landscape is dominated by many types\/variations of igneous and metamorphic rocks, part of the Arabo-Nubian massif and dating back to the Precambrian Era. In the north east of the country, there are large expanses of very young volcanic rocks, the result of eruptions in the last 25 million years. An interesting geological feature is a 210 m tall halite (rock salt) formation called \u0022Mount Sodom\u0022, in the Dead Sea area (from Palyam.org)","hydrology":"The EMS is as much a ?marine? desert as its terrestrial counterpart, the Sahara. The arid summers in our region cause the surface waters to become hotter and more saline. This results in a highly unusual anti-estuarine circulation, which brings nutrient-depleted waters into the EMS from the Straits of Sicily and causes the nutrient-rich waters to be jetted out via the deeper outflowing waters. This means there are very low levels of nutrients for algae and plants to grow as a limited, but an unusually semi-tropical, system (MKMRS report 2018).","soils":"The continental margin of northern Sinai and Israel, up to Haifa Bay, is the northeastern limb of the submarine Nile Delta Cone. It is made up predominantly of clastics from the Nile and its predecessors. The continental shelf and coastal plain of Israel are built of a series of shore-parallel ridges composed of carbonate-cemented quartz sandstone (locally named kurkar), a lithification product of windblown sands that were piled up into dunes during the Pleistocene. The drop in global sea level and regression during the last glacial period exposed the continental shelf to subaerial erosion and created a widespread regional erosional unconformity which is expressed as a prominent seismic reflector at the top of the kurkar layers. The subsequent Holocene transgression abraded much of the westernmost kurkar ridges, drowned their cores, and covered the previous lowstand deposits with marine sands, which were in turn covered by a sequence of sub-recent clayey silts (from Almagor, Gill, and Perath, 1999)","vegetation":"Rocky intertidal habitats of Vermetid reef structures from the Pleistocene dune formations. They are inhabited by gastropods (Dendropoma sp.) and characterized by calcareous red algae and the shells of Vermetus triqueter. This reduces erosion and gives the reefs another name - \u0027abrasion platform\u0027 - around mid sea level. The formations are typical in water temperate climes."},"geographic":{"boundaries":null,"coordinates":"POINT (34.8905472 32.489472)","country":["Israel"],"elevation":{"avg":null,"min":null,"max":null,"unit":"msl"},"size":{"value":270000,"unit":"ha"},"relatedLocations":null},"focusDesignScale":{"experiments":{"design":null,"scale":null},"observations":{"design":null,"scale":null},"observedProperties":[{"label":"acid neutralizing capacity of water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22029"},{"label":"ammonium content","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10071"},{"label":"ammonium nitrate concentration","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10072"},{"label":"ammonium nitrogen content","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10076"},{"label":"available phosphorus","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22061"},{"label":"biological oxygen demand","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22068"},{"label":"carbon dioxide concentration","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22082"},{"label":"chemical composition of water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21213"},{"label":"chemical parameter","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10333"},{"label":"chlorophyll a content in water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21214"},{"label":"chlorophyll content of water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10088"},{"label":"concentration of nitrogen in the entire plant","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22088"},{"label":"conductivity","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22089"},{"label":"current direction","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/30026"},{"label":"current speed","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/30027"},{"label":"dissolved nutrient","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22107"},{"label":"dissolved organic carbon in water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10307"},{"label":"dissolved organic nitrogen","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10125"},{"label":"dissolved organic phosphorus","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22108"},{"label":"ecosystem parameter","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/20939"},{"label":"inorganic carbon content","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22135"},{"label":"inorganic nitrogen content","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22136"},{"label":"inorganic nutrient content","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22137"},{"label":"nitrogen availability","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/20968"},{"label":"nitrogen budget","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/20970"},{"label":"nitrogen content","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22174"},{"label":"nutrient availability","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21457"},{"label":"nutrient concentration","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22176"},{"label":"oxygen saturation","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21215"},{"label":"pH value of water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21218"},{"label":"percent carbon","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22181"},{"label":"percent organic carbon","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22183"},{"label":"redox potential of water","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21216"},{"label":"sea level","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22224"},{"label":"sea surface temperature","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22225"},{"label":"secchi depth","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22226"},{"label":"total carbon","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22296"},{"label":"total organic carbon","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22297"},{"label":"water acidity","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22030"},{"label":"water alkalinity","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10303"},{"label":"water parameter","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/20945"},{"label":"water salinity","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/10308"},{"label":"water temperature","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/22313"},{"label":"water turbidity","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/21217"},{"label":"zooplankton abundance","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/30019"},{"label":"zooplankton biomass","uri":"http:\/\/vocabs.lter-europe.net\/EnvThes\/30022"}]},"infrastructure":{"accessibleAllYear":true,"accessType":"regular car","allPartsAccessible":true,"maintenanceInterval":null,"permanentPowerSupply":true,"operation":{"permanent":false,"notes":null,"siteVisitInterval":null},"notes":null,"collection":[{"label":"10-100 kW","uri":null},{"label":"2 - 5 places","uri":null},{"label":"\u003E 10 beds","uri":null},{"label":"Central station(s)","uri":null},{"label":"Marine Platform","uri":null},{"label":"No data transmission from site","uri":null},{"label":"Telephone line","uri":null},{"label":"Vehicle 4WD","uri":null}],"data":{"policy":{"url":null,"rights":["Co-authorship on publications resulting from use of the dataset","The data provider must be offered co-authorship for publications using this dataset at least within the metadata description","Formal acknowledgement of the dataset providers","The opportunity to collaborate on the project using the dataset","The opportunity to review the results based on the dataset","Mutual agreement on reciprocal sharing of data"],"notes":null}}},"relatedResources":null,"projectRelated":{"lter":{"lterSiteClassification":"Emerging Site"}}}}