This team's focus is on developing a new series of very detailed sea bed geology maps based on multibeam and sidescan data that will allow a step-change in our understanding of the sea bed environment.
These new data will underpin the assessment of our marine resources and provide an important part of the framework for marine planning.
The data we collect is allowing new studies of marine habitats and a tremendous advance in our understanding of the last ice age and the dramatic climate change as the ice retreated.
The BGS is working with The Crown Estate to understand sea bed development opportunities across UK Continental Shelf, by creating a sea bed constraints analysis derived from new Geological Factor maps.
2009: A BGS team led an offshore survey to East Rockall Bank and Anton Dohrn Seamount in the north-east Atlantic Ocean discovering previously unknown deep-water cold-water coral reefs.
A joint initiative led by the BGS, the National Oceanography Centre and the Scottish Association for Marine Science to improve our understanding of the sea bed environment around the UK.
Between 2005 and 2009, the BGS undertook a study of the fjord coastline in the Summer Isles region, west of Ullapool, including Loch Broom and Little Loch Broom; initiating a primary marine geological survey of Scotland's fjords.
2011: The BGS and Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park Authority collaborated to produce a new navigation chart of Loch Lomond.
2010: a multibeam survey of Loch Eriboll — the only deepwater sea loch on the north coast of Scotland — to produce a detailed bathymetric map.
2012: A PhD project investigating modern and glacial environments and processes in Windermere; producing a new bathymetric map from a multibeam survey.
Contact Alan Stevenson for more information on marine and geological mapping