A study of our seabed, to be available on the internet next week, is throwing new light on deep-water habitats, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
Imagine being able to design, map and read your very own study of a marine habitat - without having a doctorate in oceanography or cartography, or even getting your feet wet.
That's the aim of a new venture by 12 European partners involved in the Mapping European Seabed Habitats (Mesh) project. The partners, including Ireland, intend to open an interactive web-based tool next week which takes the reader through the procedures and decisions required to conduct and interpret a marine survey.
Case studies and samples will be used to illustrate the web guide, which will also be published in a DVD ROM format. It is one of several dimensions to the EU-funded Mesh project, which is currently charting European marine habitats in tandem with Ireland's continuing survey of this island's entire seabed.
Mesh was initiated in 2004 by 12 partners across Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France to produce habitat maps, templates for future marine mapping projects, case histories and a stakeholder database. It is due to wind up this year and draws on much of the work already undertaken for the Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS).
"Our survey represents Ireland's contribution to Mesh, if you like," says Fiona Fitzpatrick, project co-ordinator at the Marine Institute. Progress of the INSS has been followed periodically by this newspaper since it was initiated by the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) and the Marine Institute in 1999.
Within its first couple of years, it was returning exciting data which showed evidence of a continuing earthquake contributing to a major landslide on the Rockall Trough; evidence of extensive deepwater coral; and striking images of wrecks such as that of the Lusitania on the seabed off the Old Head of Kinsale.
Initially, the INSS focused on Ireland's offshore territory, and some 11 survey ships and ships of opportunity, along with aircraft, mapped a 450,000 sq km area equivalent to the territory of Germany and Austria combined. Last summer, its latest phase, known as Infomar, moved inshore to map 26 priority bays and four priority "areas".
Infomar is an abbreviation for "integrated mapping for sustainable development of Ireland's marine resource", and this new phase is scheduled to take place over 20 years, with confirmed funding for four years to date. It has surveyed fishing and fish-farming areas in Bantry and Dunmanus bays, and fish-spawning areas off the south-west coast.
Since mid-April of this year it has covered, some 2,899 sq km off Dingle peninsula, an area the size of Co Limerick, in water depths of between 26m and 203m. During the voyages, it identified at least six shipwreck sites. The EU has designated this sea area as biologically sensitive, and part of the work aims to provide more information on the habitat.
The project looked at Galway Bay in July and will visit Waterford Bay in October. Plans for 2008 include surveys of Dublin Bay, Carlingford Lough, Donegal Bay and Sligo Bay.
Meanwhile, Mesh has recently reported discoveries of additional cold water coral, Lophelia pertusa, in unexplored deep sea canyons some 400km south of Cork.
Irish scientists worked with colleagues from the British Geological Survey (BGS) and the University of Plymouth, under leadership of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).
An interesting departure was the first use of the BGS's sub bottom profiling sparker on the Celtic Explorer. This piece of equipment can penetrate up to 500m below the canyon's surface, measuring the thickness of sediment layers and the structure of the underlying bedrock.
Sea cucumbers (Holothurians), squat lobster (Munida rugosa), numerous anemone and several starfish species, sea pens, shell debris and fish species were recorded by the international team.
This photograph was taken during a collaborative survey involving the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, the Marine Institute and the British Geological Survey. Defra Natural Environmental Group Science Division (CRO 361) made a financial contribution to this work, which contributes to the Mesh project (www.searchmesh.net) that receives European Regional Development Funding through the INTERREG IIIB Community Initiative (www.nweurope.org).