Falmouth Group 8

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Although the surveyed area was outside the SAC's designation, the site is important to Falmouth Bay because the area falls under the Annex 1 habitat code 1160 described officially as: large shallow inlets and bays are large indentations of the coast, generally more sheltered from wave action than the open coast. Relatively shallow (with water less than 30m over most of the area). In the sublittoral zone, more exposed rocky coasts support forests of kelp L. hyperborea, with forests of sugar kelp L. saccharina occurring in more sheltered conditions. Communities of ephemeral algae and maerl were present on tide-swept coasts. Animal-dominated rocky communities range from gravels and coarse sands, and vary between locations. On more wave-exposed coasts, soft corals, anemones, sponges, and hydroids may be dominant. In tide-swept areas communities of hydroid and bryozoan turfs or beds.  This site is a ria system that supports a wide range of communities representative of marine inlets and shallow bays. There is a particularly diverse algal flora, and the area supports extensive and rich sediment communities, which include the largest and most south-westerly maerl Phymatolithon calcareum bed in the UK.


The site was surveyed with a duel-frequency Side Scan Sonar tow-fish with a total of 5 parallel 2km transects approximately 70m apart, allowing minor overlap of side scan tracks. Three transects were recorded using a video sled unit and ran perpendicular to the Side Scan transects and allowed the visualisation of the vertical zonation observed in the rapidly changing depths around the Bizzies. The data was then used to produce a habitat map of the area surveyed.

Location:  From:      To:


Date: 27/06/2013


Time period: 11:45 to 3:15 UTC


Tides: High Tide:  ; Low Tide:


Weather conditions:  /8 cloud cover

Geophysical Work