Geology & Geophysics Group
Seafloor environments
Contact: Prof. Doug Masson
Over the past decade marine geologists have become increasingly involved in the application of marine geoscience to biological issues, such as the characterisation of seafloor habitats. Our research into seafloor environments is directly aimed at improving methods of seafloor characterisation, applying these methods to key areas of seafloor where exploitation or conservation issues are active, and ultimately to help manage the deep-sea floor in a sustainable manner.
This research is needed now, because man’s exploitation of the deep ocean floor is progressing at a rapidly increasing rate. For example, hydrocarbons are being extracted from deep ocean sites at water depths > 3000 m and bottom trawling now occurs to >1500 m. The importance of this research is recognised by many agencies with funding from NERC (Core Strategic Programme), the EC (HERMES) and UK Government Departments (DTI Strategic Environmental Assessment programme).
Above left: Deployment of SHRIMP for video survey of the seafloor.
Key areas of research include:
- Developing new techniques for seafloor characterisation
- Characterisation of the physical parameters that control the distribution of cold-water corals
- Integration of physical and ecological information from submarine canyons, to identify key environmental controls on biological distributions and the relative vulnerability (susceptible or resilient) of the various canyon ecosystem components
- Characterisation of cold seeps on continental margins (see our Fluid Flow research pages)
- Applied strategic environmental research, in particular within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone
Current projects include:
- Hotspot Ecosystems Research on the Margins of European Seas (HERMES)
- Strategic environmental assessment west of the UK
- Characterisation of cold-water coral reefs
- Deep-water coral mounds in the northern Rockall Trough
- High-resolution seabed characterisation
- Sedimentary environments in the Faeroe Bank, NE Atlantic
