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This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA4) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). The report describes the surficial sediments in the SEA4 area and the sedimentary processes that are active in the area at the present day. The report focuses on the deeper water areas from the outer continental shelf to the floor of the Norwegian Basin in the northernmost part of SEA4. The report is based on sidescan sonar images, multibeam bathymetry, sub-bottom profiles, seabed photographs and sediment samples. The Holocene and late glacial events and processes that contributed to the present day seafloor morphology and sediment distribution are reviewed, as is the present day oceanographic regime. It is concluded that the present day sedimentary environment, seaward of the continental shelf edge at about 200 m water depth, is dominated by low sediment input and deposition rates, and by reworking of surficial sediments by bottom currents. The large scale seabed morphology was shaped mainly during the last glacial, when high sediment input resulted in glacigenic debris fan formation.
British Geological Survey (BGS)
Other details | ||
Internal code | Internally assigned metadata identifier | 814 |
Title | The title is used to provide a brief and precise description of the dataset such as 'Date', 'Originating organisation/programme', 'Location' and 'Type of survey'. All acronyms and abbreviations should be reproduced in full. | 2003 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA4 Technical report - Seafloor sediments and sediment processes on the outer continental shelf, continental slope and basin floor (north UKCS) |
File Identifier | The File Identifier is a code, preferably a GUID, that is globally unique and remains with the same metadata record even if the record is edited or transferred between portals or tools. | aba64100-c126-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd |
Resource Identifier | This is the code assigned by the data owner. | BGS_SEA_49 |
Resource type | The resource type will likely be a dataset but could also be a series (collection of datasets with a common specification) or a service. | dataset |
Start date | This describes the date the resource starts. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 1996-01-01 |
End date | This describes the date the resource ends. This may only be the year if month and day are not known | 2002-01-01 |
Spatial resolution | This describes the spatial resolution of the dataset or the spatial limitations of the service. | 5 |
Spatial resolution unit | This describes the unit of spatial resolution which for distance must be metres. | http://standards.iso.org/ittf/PubliclyAvailableStandards/ISO_19139_Schemas/resources/uom/gmxUom.xml#m |
Frequency of updates | This describes the frequency with which the resource is modified or updated i.e. a monitoring programme that samples once per year has a frequency that is described as 'annually'. | notPlanned |
Abstract | The abstract provides a clear and brief statement of the content of the resource. | This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA4) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). The report describes the surficial sediments in the SEA4 area and the sedimentary processes that are active in the area at the present day. The report focuses on the deeper water areas from the outer continental shelf to the floor of the Norwegian Basin in the northernmost part of SEA4. The report is based on sidescan sonar images, multibeam bathymetry, sub-bottom profiles, seabed photographs and sediment samples. The Holocene and late glacial events and processes that contributed to the present day seafloor morphology and sediment distribution are reviewed, as is the present day oceanographic regime. It is concluded that the present day sedimentary environment, seaward of the continental shelf edge at about 200 m water depth, is dominated by low sediment input and deposition rates, and by reworking of surficial sediments by bottom currents. The large scale seabed morphology was shaped mainly during the last glacial, when high sediment input resulted in glacigenic debris fan formation. |
Lineage | Lineage includes the background information, history of the sources of data, data quality statements and methods. | This report was prepared by Dr D G Masson and colleagues from the Southampton Oceanography Centre as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. Survey data used in this report includes sidescan sonar images, multibeam bathymetry, subbottom profiles, seabed photographs and sediment samples. This data was collected during a number of surveys funded by the Atlantic Frontier Environmental Network (AFEN) in 1996 and 1998 and by the DTI in 1999, 2000 and 2002. Sidescan sonar data was collected using two systems, the 30 kHz TOBI system in water depths greater than 200 m and a 100 kHz ORE or Widescan system at depths shallower than 200 m. The TOBI instrument package included 30 kHz sidescan sonar, 7.5 kHz profiler, three axis fluxgate magnetometer, CTD and an ultra-short baseline navigation transponder beacon. Sub-bottom profiles were collected using the 7.5 kHz profiler mounted on TOBI and a 3.5 kHz surface towed profiler. Seabed photography was carried out using the SOC WASP system, an off bottom towed camera. Three different sampling devices were used to cope with the wide range of surface sediment types, ranging from coarse gravel to mud, found in the SEA4 area. In fine grained sediments, a hydraulically damped multiple corer with up to twelve 10 cm internal diameter core tubes was used to obtain high quality cores up to 30 cm in length. In coarser sediments, particularly where significant quantities of gravel were present, this was replaced with a USNEL-type box corer capable of collecting a square section sample of 0.25"m2 and up to 50 cm in length. In very coarse sandy gravels, where other sampling devices failed, a Day grab was used as a last resort. |
Additional information | This describes relevant references to the data e.g. reports, articles, websites plus other useful information not captured elsewhere. | http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php |
Related keywords | ||
Keyword | General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | NDGO0001 |
Keyword title | NERC OAI Harvesting | |
Keyword | General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Bathymetry and Elevation |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Seabed photography | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Sediment accumulation rate | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Sediment acoustics | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Sediment grain size parameters | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Seismic reflection | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Side-scan sonar | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | Geology | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | crust | |
General subject area(s) associated with the resource, uses multiple controlled vocabularies | sediment | |
Geographical coverage | ||
North | The northern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 64 |
East | The eastern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 2 |
South | The southern-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | 58.7 |
West | The western-most limit of the data resource in decimal degrees | -7 |
Responsible organisations | ||
Role | The point of contact is person or organisation with responsibility for the creation and maintenance of the metadata for the resource. | pointOfContact |
Organisation name | British Geological Survey (BGS) | |
Individual name | Mary Mowat | |
Phone | +44 (0)131 667 1000 | |
Fax | +44 (0)131 668 4140 | |
Role | The custodian is the person or organisation that accepts responsibility for the resource and ensures appropriate care and maintenance. If a dataset has been lodged with a Data Archive Centre for maintenance then this organisation is be entered here. | custodian |
Organisation name | British Geological Survey (BGS) | |
Individual name | Paul Henni | |
Phone | +44 (0)131 667 1000 | |
Delivery point | Murchison House, West Mains Road | |
Postal code | EH9 3LA | |
City | Edinburgh | |
Country | UK | |
Role | The originator is the person or organisation who created, collected or produced the resource. | originator |
Organisation name | Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) | |
Phone | +44 0300 060 4000 | |
Fax | +44 (0) 1823 284077 | |
Delivery point | Admiralty Way | |
Postal code | SW1A 2HD | |
City | London | |
Country | UK | |
Resource locators | ||
Locator URL | Web address (URL) that links to the resource | http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html |
Locator name | Name of the web resource | Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal |
Locator function | Code that describes the function of the resource. ISO function code chosen from ISO 19115-1 Codelist | download |
Dataset constraints | ||
20 Limitations on Public Access - Access constraints | ISO restriction code chosen from ISO 19115-1 Codelist | intellectualPropertyRights |
21 Conditions for Access and Use - Use limitation | Any restrictions imposed on accessing the resource such as the need to agree to certain licence conditions. | The SEAs data were produced as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme; Crown Copyright, all rights reserved. The DECC SEA must be acknowledged in any maps or publications that make use of the data. All the data files are freely available to the public. The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the SEA process. The site is run and managed by BGS on behalf of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). Many files can be downloaded directly from this website. Those that are too large to download can be ordered via the website for postal delivery from BGS. BGS (NERC) has been contracted by DECC to publish SEA datasets on its behalf. All intellectual property rights (including , without limitation, copyrights, database rights and all other rights which subsist or may at any time in the future subsist in the Dataset(s)) in the Dataset(s) ('Intellectual Property Rights') are owned by DECC (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform). BGS has been authorised by DECC to use SEA datasets for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit basis'. BGS has been authorised by DECC to pass on SEA datasets to third parties so that they can use them for all purposes but on a 'not-for-profit' basis. |
Available data formats | ||
Data format name | Format in which digital data can be provided for transfer | Documents |
Version info | ||
Date of publication | The publication date of the resource or if previously unpublished the date that the resource was made publicly available via the MEDIN network. | 2003-01-01 |
Metadata date | The date when the content of this metadata record was last updated. | 2011-08-30 |
Metadata standard name | The name of the metadata standard used to create this metadata | MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard |
Metadata standard version | The version of the MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard used to create the metadata record | Version 2.3.5 |
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