LIBRARY OF HORIZONS: MOBILE ISLANDS

 

The GR 2013 trail at Port-de-Bouc provides a close up view of the Marseille-Fos Port complex, Frances largest seaport and the fourth largest port in Europe. At this site, the marine horizon is a constantly shifting landscape of commercial transport vessels. Ship traffic in this region exceeds 16,000 vessels per year, transporting over 80 million tons of cargo.

 

Oil and natural gas shipments comprise 60% of the port traffic. Ironically, most of the fossil hydrocarbons transported to the port had their origins in ancient seafloors 10 - 270 millions of years old, now floating on the surface of contemporary seas in the mobile technological islands of the global shipping industry.

 

At Port-de-Bouc, the GR 2013 trail along the shoreline functions as an informal capitainerie for observing the wide diversity of tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships moving through the region.