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A stormy morning off the Greek island of Crete, the German research vessel Meteor is returning

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after three intensive weeks in the Mediterranean Sea. On board, around 30 European scientists,

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including Italian geophysicist Silvia Cermicola. She's greeted by her colleague Daniel Craig.

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They work at Italy's National Institute of Oceanography in Trieste, OGS for short. Both

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share a common passion, underwater mud volcanoes. Silvia's best friend on board has been this

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underwater vehicle, able to reach depths of 4,000 metres. During the three weeks, all

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sorts of marine species have posed in front of its seven digital cameras.

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For Silvia, the most precious footage was this bare sea floor. The mounds are a volcano

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made of mud. Unlike the more usual hot volcanoes, mud ones are mainly formed by the release

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of cold gases, fluids and sediment from the Earth's shallow depths. It's only recently

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that European scientists have turned their attention to them, using multi-beam sonars,

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video and sedimentary rocks taken from the sea floor.

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The volcanoes are on the surface of an underwater basin which has several kilometres of sediment

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lying on base rock. If we're able to understand at what depth this rock came from before being

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thrown out by the volcano, then we'll be able to estimate the size of it. We also want to

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know if the spewing out of this sedimentary material has been cyclical on a regular basis

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or if it was only once.

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Silvia and her team discovered these two volcanoes last year.