Science Spin January 2010

Ireland emerges as marine surveying 'superpower'

By Sean Duke

Since modern marine surveying began in the Irish offshore in 2000, a comprehensive picture of the Irish seabed has been built up, revealing huge valleys, canyons and rocky outcrops on our seafloor. The scale of the work has been enormous, given that Ireland's territorial seabed stretches out more than 700 miles from the west coast, or more than half way to Iceland. A total of 13 survey ships, many of them international ships, together with some aeroplanes, have been involved in a 'big science' project that is impressive given that it has been carried out by a small island nation of just four million people. The last ten years has seen Ireland arguably, but remarkably, emerge from nowhere to become the greatest marine surveying nation on Earth, bar none.

STAGGERING

The scale of what has been achieved in the last ten years in marine surveying in Ireland is staggering. We went from being a nation that still relied on ancient British Admiralty maps from the 1840s to navigate the waters around us, to a world-leading nation that has employed the most advanced surveying techniques to map a large chunk of its offshore.

The Irish offshore is huge. At 652,000 square km, it is about nine times the size of Ireland's land area, and about the same size as Italy and Germany combined. Until recently, little or nothing was known about our territorial waters, but following the surveying heroics of the last decade, we now know a lot more.

For example, there is further evidence to support the view that some geologists already had, that substantial oil and gas reserves are waiting to be tapped at the bottom of deep, treacherous waters off our western shores. As technology advances and it becomes harder to find oil in less treacherous locations, this oil and gas, if there, might yet make us rich.

We also now know that large 'cold water coral fields' flourish in our waters, and we also understand that our offshore is home to lots of previously unknown life forms. Some of these new species could perhaps be 'mined' for chemicals that could be used for new drugs, for example, or for compounds that would be of interest to the cosmetic industry.

Commenting on the success of the surveying operations in the past decade, Enda Gallagher, spokesperson for the Geological Survey of Ireland said:

"A whole new detailed picture of the sea floor is emerging from a combination of state-of-the-art data collection techniques including, multi-beam and side scan sonar measurements, underwater video footage and a variety of sampling operations. The discovery of cold water corals in deep Irish waters and the precise recording of hundreds of shipwrecks are just two fascinating aspects, but the seabed survey geological data is only just beginning to open a whole new world."

SURVEYS

So, the lid has finally been lifted on the national treasure trove that is our offshore, and we now have the technology and the resources to look inside and see what's there. This story begins with the birth of the Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS), in 2000, which surveyed our deep waters.

The successor to the INSS, called INFOMAR (Integrated Mapping for the Sustainable Development of Ireland's Marine Resource) was set up in 2007 to survey bays and near shore areas. Both the INSS and INFOMAR were funded by the National Development Plans, one and two, and the responsibility for the doing the surveys fell to the Marine Institute and the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI).

The amount of data collected has been quite awesome. For instance, under the INSS alone, surveyors produced over 300 paper-based charts and some 11 Terabytes of digital information. To get an idea of how much that is, if someone wanted to burn all of this information onto DVD disks, it would require about 2,421 disks to complete the job.

ECONOMY

The two major surveys, the INSS and INFOMAR represent a considerable investment by the State. However, the economic benefits arising from the work to Ireland will be €275 million, according to a recent report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC). The benefits, if this report is accurate, will be a yield four times the investment in it, with significant advantages to areas such as fishing, energy, and tourism. Of course, if significant oil and gas reserves are found, this figure could be far higher still.

The INFOMAR project, begun in 2006, as the INSS was wound down, is expected to run for at least 20 years, and its goal, initially at least, is to focus on producing information that is commercially valuable. The aim here is to complete the mapping of Ireland's inshore areas - specifically all the remaining areas of our offshore territory not surveyed by the INSS. Initially, the work is focused on 26 'priority' bays and three 'priority' areas. These have been selected as priority areas due to their potential to positively impact on areas such as renewable energy, shipping navigation, marine leisure, safety at sea, fishing and marine aggregates (sand and gravel deposits that lie offshore close to land).

FUTURE

Ireland has achieved great things in marine surveying in this decade, and now, from nowhere, is a world leader in this area. That was unimaginable just ten years ago. The future is bright too, with funds continuing to flow into marine projects. In recent years, the Celtic Explorer research vessel has been commissioned, along with more recently a new robotic submersible, the RV Holland, which is producing dramatic pictures from the Irish offshore - something like the pictures coming back from Mars. These are areas of our own planet where mankind has never had sight of before. It's our final frontier. In 2009, another research vessel was commissioned, the RV Keary, named after the pioneering geologist, the late Ray Keary. This will survey the nearshore areas, and continue Ireland's great marine surveying adventure that began back in 2000.

BENEFITS

FISHERIES: Data from the INSS are being used in on-board systems to help provide a 3D view of the seafloor and such initiatives will ultimately help fishermen to reduce net loss and to be more environmentally friendly in their fishing practises.
HYDROCARBONS: The INSS has carried out refraction seismic surveys in 2002 and 2004 in a remote frontier area known as the Hatton Basin. The 2002 survey utilised equipment that at depths exceeding 3,000 metres enabled penetration to depths of 35 kms into the seafloor (and the continental crust). These surveys are contributing to the oil and gas exploration effort in this remote area. A second objective of the surveys is to help identify areas of Gas Hydrates. These are essentially areas of solid frozen hydrocarbon that may be a fuel of the future.
BETTER MAPS: New data has been provided to the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office who in turn is updating the navigation chart series covering Irish waters. A particular case in point is Clew Bay where, due to its island-strewn character, the INSS decided on an innovative aerial survey. Data from two laser airborne surveys over two years have been released to the UKHO who undertook to update the 100+ year-old navigation chart for the Bay. Meanwhile, 2010 will see a new navigation chart produced for Dublin Bay
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES: We now know that the Irish seabed is home to vast systems of previously unidentified coral reefs, some stretching for as long as 70 miles. Such coral, living at depths of up to 2000 metres, are known as Lophelia - deep-sea, cold-water coral.
SHIPWRECKS: The surveys have identified the precise locations of hundreds of shipwrecks around the Irish coast. Further work on their identification and history is being undertaken by the National Parks & Wildlife Service using the precision location data provided by the INSS/INFOMAR.
EDUCATION: The Leaving Certificate physics syllabus has been linked to the INSS work of the GSI and a module was completed in time for the 2006/07 academic year.