T H E
U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A L T A A L U M N I N E W S L E T T E R
Some days ago, a Maltese team from the Department of Classics and Archaeology at the University of
Malta - working in close collaboration with the
Superintendence of Cultural Heritage - partnered up with the French National Centre for Research and the University of Aix-Marseilles in the ambit of the
GROPLAN Project. Together they conducted a number of studies on what can be described as a fascinating ancient shipwreck.
This site which is very well preserved dates to the
Phoenician period (700BC) and may be considered as one of the oldest shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean.
Several months of meticulous planning led to five days of fieldwork. During these five days the team worked to gather as much data and information as possible using state of the art technologies. Thousands of images of the site were obtained and they are currently being processed into high resolution 3D images. The cargo consisting of mixed ceramic containers and grinding stones gives evidence of Phoenician maritime activity around the Maltese Islands. Project partners from France are developing recording and processing softwares specifically for the purpose of studying such ancient and unique underwater sites.

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Over 500 submarine canyons have been mapped along the Malta Escarpment during a recent oceanographic expedition.
The CUMECS-2 expedition, comprising an international team of scientists led by Dr Aaron Micallef from the
University of Malta, spent a week surveying a 250 km long underwater cliff offshore Malta and Sicily. The scientists used modern deep water acoustic technologies on board the OGS Explora to investigate seafloor at depths down to 4000 m and generate a detailed map of the entire
Malta Escarpment. Operations on the ship continued day and night and had to battle with bad weather at times.
The most impressive feature mapped was a large submarine canyon that has an area equivalent to eight times that of the Maltese Islands. There are indications that this canyon seems to be active and hosts tens of small recent landslides. Submarine canyons deserve further investigation and protection because they host a variety of biological communities, act as conduits for nutrients and pollutants, and control the exchange of water between the shallow and deep ocean.
The scientists also acquired a number of deep water geological samples that hold important information on past earthquake activity and climatic changes through time.
The next step of the project is to analyse these geological samples in the laboratory and compare the Malta Escarpment with underwater cliffs mapped elsewhere around the world. This will be made possible by a Fulbright Scholarship awarded by the US Embassy and the University of Malta.
The CUMECS-2 expedition was funded by an EU FP
7 Marie Curie Career Integration Grant. The CUMECS-2 team consisted of scientists and students from the
University of Malta, National Oceanography Centre
(UK), National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research (New Zealand), University College Dublin
(Ireland) and Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e
Geofisica (Italy).
The University of Malta signed a Memorandum of
Understanding with the Malta Chamber of Commerce,
Enterprise and Industry to facilitate the sponsorship of trainee opportunities for pharmacists who are reading for a postgraduate Doctorate of Pharmacy degree at the University of Malta. Rector, Professor Juanito
Camilleri, signed on behalf of the University of Malta while the President, Mr David Curmi, and Mr Reginald
Fava, Chairman of the Chamber’s Pharmacists Pharmacy
Owners Business Section, signed for the Chamber of
Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.
The postgraduate Doctorate of Pharmacy degree is offered by the University of Malta in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago USA. The College of Pharmacy of the University of Illinois at Chicago ranks amongst the top ten schools of pharmacy in the
USA and ranks fourth among US colleges of Pharmacy in attracting National Institute of Health Research
Funding.
The Doctorate in Pharmacy degree is a Level
8 postgraduate programme which provides the opportunity for pharmacists to develop further their career and take up advanced practice and applied pharmacy research. The course will be taught jointly by staff from the University of Illinois at Chicago and from the University of Malta.

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An all-sky map of the Cosmic Microwave Background, showing the differences in temperatures of the Big Bang’s leftover radiant heat across the sky
The new golden age of astronomy is upon us, with massive instruments currently being built around the world. This is being reflected even locally, with the inauguration of the University of Malta’s Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy (ISSA) on 24th
September at the Aula Magna, Valletta Campus. The inauguration ceremony included speeches by the Hon.
Chris Agius, Parliamentary Secretary for Research,
Innovation, Youth and Sport, by Professor Emmanuel
Sinagra, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Science and by the Institute’s first director, Dr Kristian Zarb Adami.
The inauguration ceremony was followed by a public talk by the globally acclaimed astrophysicist, Professor
George Fitzgerald Smoot III, who won the 2006
Nobel Prize in Physics with Professor John Mather for discovering fluctuations in the radiation signature left over from the Big Bang. This talk, titled ‘The Big Bang
Theory’, presented a review of the current state of cosmology based on astronomical observations, and discussed the mysteries which still need to be solved.
Emphasis was put on the need for continuous mapping of the matter in the universe which allows us to trace its history in detail. This talk also opened ISSA’s first workshop ‘Cosmos in the Med’ which culminated with the annual science festival, Science in the City . The workshop is part of a larger series of workshops taking place every year in different countries around the world.
Professor Smoot was also joined by world renowned scientists Professor Jim Rich, Dr Chiara Ferrari and Dr
Edward Porter.
ISSA is composed of members from the Faculties of Science, Engineering and ICT and is thus one of the first multidisciplinary bodies within the University of Malta. ISSA’s members are working on numerous projects, with collaborations that cross the globe, while building up in-house infrastructure for a broad range of disciplines such as supercomputing capacities, advanced electromagnetic instruments for antenna design, and new theoretical physics. They are heavily involved in several international projects and consortia, including the Square Kilometer Array, the Euclid
Telescope and the Einstein Telescope, amongst others.
The Institute is also offering a research-based Masters course in Astroinformatics.
This newletter is published by the Communications and Alumni
Relations Office within the University of Malta.
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