aba64100-c12a-4de3-e044-0003ba6f30bd English dataset Mary Mowat British Geological Survey (BGS) +44 (0)131 667 1000 +44 (0)131 668 4140 offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk pointOfContact 2011-08-30 MEDIN Discovery Metadata Standard Version 2.3.5 urn:ogc:def:crs:EPSG::4326 OGP 2003 Strategic Environmental Assessment SEA4 Technical report - Continental shelf seabed geology and processes (north UKCS) 2003-01-01 publication BGS_SEA_54 British Geological Survey 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 is a summary of published data and interpretations describes the surficial seabed geology and geological processes affecting the continental shelf part of the SEA4 area, lying in water depths of less than 200 m. Roughly half of the SEA4 area lies in these water depths. The report reviews the seabed geomorphology, near-bottom currents, types of rock outcrop, variations in the texture of the unconsolidated sediments, the variety and distributions of seabed bedforms and selected aspects of the inorganic geochemistry of the sediments. Variations in the seabed geology have a major influence on the organisms that live on the bottom, thus are important to understanding the modern seabed habitat. The modern seabed environment now largely reflects the effects of reworking by near-bottom currents on the topography and the sediments that originated during the glaciations. Paul Henni British Geological Survey (BGS) +44 (0)131 667 1000 Murchison House, West Mains Road Edinburgh EH9 3LA UK offshoredata@bgs.ac.uk custodian Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) +44 0300 060 4000 +44 (0) 1823 284077 Admiralty Way London SW1A 2HD UK enquiries@decc.gsi.gov.uk originator notPlanned Documents NDGO0001 Bathymetry and Elevation Lithology Sediment accumulation rate Sediment grain size parameters Seismic reflection Side-scan sonar SeaDataNet Parameter Discovery Vocabulary 2011-03-25 revision Geology GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0 2008-06-01 publication crust sediment SeaVoX Vertical Co-ordinate Coverages 2008-06-01 publication 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. intellectualPropertyRights 5 English environment geoscientificInformation oceans SeaVoX salt and fresh water body gazetteer 2006-01-01 revision North Atlantic Ocean -7 1.4 58.7 64 2003-01-01 2003-01-01 http://www.offshore-sea.org.uk/site/index.php http://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/sea/home.html Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) data portal provides free access to available data and reports which have been produced through the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change 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. download dataset The report was prepared by the British Geological Survey as part of the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change's Offshore Energy Strategic Environmental Assessment programme. The information presented for this report forms a small part of the seabed data available from the BGS series of 1:250,000 scale published maps and regional reports of solid geology, Quaternary geology and seabed sediments that cover SEA4 south of 62 N. The maps were compiled from interpretations of regional single channel seismic reflection survey profiles and from seabed grab and core samples. The regional seismic reflection profiles used during compilation of the published maps were spaced some 10-15 km apart. The Quaternary and seabed sediment maps include supplementary information from interpretations of nearshore close-survey sidescan sonar and single-channel echo sounder data that has been released by the Hydrographic Office (HO) to the British Geological Survey (BGS) for publication at 1:250,000 scale. Other known systematic close surveys or swath regional surveys on the continental shelf include commercial site investigations for drilling rigs, development platforms, pipelines and cable routes. These data had been released for incorporation into the BGS maps up to the time of their publication completed in 1993. The post-1993 commercial sources of data have not been released and are not reviewed for this report. The samples sites averaged less than 10km spacing but north of 61 N may be spaced up to approximately 15-20km apart. Most of the seabed samples were processed for particle size analyses, % carbonate in various size fractions and inorganic geochemistry. Many of the superficial and shallow cores were tested for geotechnical properties in addition to particle size analyses.