The Black Sea in Romanian Oceanographic Research

Abstract

Romania, as a maritime state, after being separated from the Black Sea coast for 400 years, until the War of Independence in 1877, has a tradition in the marine sciences for over 100 years. The illustrious ancestors of Romanian oceanography, especially biological oceanography, are Emil Racoviță, Grigore Antipa and Ioan Borcea. From an oceanographic point of view, E. Racovitza distinguished himself as a biologist of the famous Antarctic multinational expedition, under the command of Captain Adrien de Gerlache, from Belgium, aboard the vessel Belgica, between 1997 and 1998. G. Antipa is the founder of the Bio-Oceanographic Institute in Constanța (1932) and of the Biological Research Station in Caliacra (currently in Bugaria) and in this context he held the positions of organizer, general administrator and director general of the State Fisheries, as the second national delegate of Romania at the International Commission for the Scientific Exploration of the Mediterranean Sea (CIESM), and as rapporteur for the Black Sea, Marmara and the Eastern Mediterranean, as well as organizer of the first Congress and General Assembly of CIESM in Romania in Bucharest in 1935. I. Borcea's main scientific achievement is the creation of the Marine Zoological Station in Agigea, in 1926, which bears his name to this day, with the maintenance of close collaborative relations in the field of marine biology, especially with France and Italy. The main marine research institutions, namely the Marine Zoological Station “Professor Ioan Borcea”, the Bio-Oceanographic Institute, which later became the Fisheries Research Station “Dr. Grigore Antipa”, the Marine Biology Sector from Constanța of the “Traian Săvulescu” Institute of Biology from Bucharest, the Oceanographic Research Station from Constanța and Sulina and the Marine Sedimentology Laboratory, affiliated to the Geological Institute of Romania, merged into the Romanian Marine Research Institute (RMRI) from Constanța on March 1, 1970. The succesor of RMRI since 1990 is the National Institute for Marine Research and Development “Grigore Antipa”, in the same headquarters (Bd. Mamaia No. 300, RO-900581 Constanța). A definite confirmation of the value of the results of the Romanian marine research, over time, is, among others, the close professional relationships with CIESM, continued to the present. Thus, Romania has further promoted and supports marine research at national, regional and international level.