Environmental Sciences Research Facilities

Funding

Marine Institute Specialist Marine Research Equipment and Small Infrastructure award

Facility

Purchase of 2GRobotics ULS-500 Underwater Laser Scanner and Rotary Actuator

Investigators

• Dr Chris McGonigle - Senior Lecturer
• Mr David Rogers - Technician (Geophysical Sciences)
• Dr Rory Quinn - Reader
• Professor Derek Jackson - Professor of Coastal Geomorphology

Description

This project will examine the utility of underwater laser scanning to improve understanding of the structure and function of seafloor habitats and communities.

Underwater laser scanning, which has demonstrated capacity to resolve sub-centimetric features in areas with complex and rugged terrain, requires generating precise bathymetry over close physical ranges (2 m to 20 m).

Being able to record these data will facilitate fundamentally new kinds of observations, as well as allowing the flexibility to study fine scale ecological and geomorphological processes over shorter term time series.

This project has the capacity to make significant advances in the scientific community’s collective understanding of the physical, biological and chemical processes operating in the benthic environment.

Funding

Type 1: type 1: European Commission FP7 EUROFLEETS2 Regional 3 call

Type 2: NERC

Facility

• 6 days shiptime on Italian RV Minerva 1 and travelling expenses
• NERC Radiocarbon Facility

Investigators

• Dr Sara Benetti - Senior Lecturer

Description

High-energy volcanic eruptions and ensuing mass transport of volcaniclastic debris pose a range of subaerial and submarine hazards, from the explosive events themselves to their capability of generating large tsunamis in the case of island or coastal volcanoes.

This project focuses on the Pantelleria volcanic complex in the central Mediterranean Sea with the aim of improving the understanding of the links between the subaerial and submarine volcanic processes.

Geophysical data and sediment cores collected during the Eurofleets2-funded research cruise will be used to:

1. investigate the deep water record of high-energy eruptive events and the evolution of the volcaniclastic flows into the ocean
2. link these events to the eruptive history of Pantelleria
3. investigate the distribution of the associated mass flow deposits and relate them to respective eruptive events
4. assess the mechanical properties of ash layers in relation to their possible behaviour as weak layers in downslope mass transport
5. investigate the oceanographic history of the north-west basin and its role as oceanographic gateway between the eastern and western Mediterranean.

Funding

Ireland’s National Development Plan 2016 Ship-Time Programme

Facility

4 days of ship time on RV Celtic Explorer

Investigators

Dr Paul Dunlop, Dr Sara Benetti

Partners

Ulster University, Marine Institute, Memorial University Newfoundland, Geological Survey Newfoundland, Geological Survey of Canada Atlantic

Description

This project aims to fill in knowledge gaps in the current understanding of the full extent of the Newfoundland Ice Sheet and its retreat pattern.

This paleo-ice sheet provides a key location for examining ice sheet interactions with external drivers such as changes in oceanic circulation, sea level and climate from the wider North Atlantic region.

The research cruise targeted the southern continental shelf of Newfoundland and worked across several fjord-mouth systems collecting new multibeam bathymetry, seismic and core data over a series of submarine moraines.

The work on the datasets is going and is focusing on the investigation of the pattern and timing of retreat of the ice sheet from its marine extension.

A full reconstruction of the marine sectors of this former ice sheet will provide important new information on how contemporary marine influenced ice sheets might respond to future climate change.

Funding

NERC

Facility

Airborne Research Facility

Description

This project will examine the utility of underwater laser scanning to improve understanding of the structure and function of seafloor habitats and communities.

Underwater laser scanning, which has demonstrated capacity to resolve sub-centimetric features in areas with complex and rugged terrain, requires generating precise bathymetry over close physical ranges (2 m to 20 m).

Being able to record these data will facilitate fundamentally new kinds of observations, as well as allowing the flexibility to study fine scale ecological and geomorphological processes over shorter term time series.

This project has the capacity to make significant advances in the scientific community’s collective understanding of the physical, biological and chemical processes operating in the benthic environment.

Funding

Marine Institute: National Research Vessels Shiptime Programme

Facility

14 days shiptime on RV Celtic Voyager

Investigators

• Dr Ruth Plets - Lecturer in Marine Science (Marine Geology)
• Dr Rory Quinn - Reader
• Dr Kieran Westley - Research Associate
• Dr Chris McGonigle - Senior Lecturer

Description

The project looks at the current state of and the prevailing physical, chemical and biological processes occurring at WWI wrecks sites in the Irish Sea.

Fieldwork included high-resolution multibeam surveying and ground-truth sampling over 12 metal wreck sites.

The outcome of the project will:

1. help heritage managers to construct effective site preservation and management strategies,
2. develop best-practice surveying guidance for shipwreck imaging
3. allow the wider public to engage with a heritage that is otherwise intangible and inaccessible through the development of high-definition digital models.

Funding

NERC

Facility

Geophysical Equipment Facility

Investigators

• Professor Derek Jackson - Professor of Coastal Geomorphology

Description

Understanding long-term dynamics of high magnitude coastal storms is important in defining the impact and frequency of these events on soft sedimentary coasts.

Isolating the timing and extent of such events is difficult, however, prograded beach and dune environments can often preserve a distinct record of these events in their morphology via paleo-scarps and/or erosional unconformities.

Instrumented records of storm events are only relatively recent and therefore for decadal to centennial timescales we must adopt alternative methods of unravelling (large) coastal storm events.

Recent reconstructions of rapid coastal geomorphic changes and oceanographic events in the North Atlantic, have suggested a strong link between storminess and the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

This project uses Ground Penetrating Radar to present a new storm chronology, based on subsurface erosional features, locked within large coastal dune systems of western Ireland over the late Holocene period.

Funding

NERC

Facility

NERC Cosmogenic Isotope Analysis Facility

Investigators

• Dr Paul Dunlop - Research Director - Geography & Environmental Sciences
• Dr Sara Benetti - Senior Lecturer

Description

This project is investigating the dynamic behaviour of the former British-Irish Ice Sheet in western Ireland with a focus on correlating the offshore glacial history with the adjacent terrestrial landscape in Co. Mayo.

The glacial and glaciomarine record is being investigated using a multiproxy approach that involves interpretation of geophysical data of the shelf adjacent to Co. Mayo, sedimentological analysis of sediment cores retrieved from moraines on the shelf and fourteenth century dating of marine microfauna of specific lithofacies to date the glacial retreat offshore. Conversely, cosmogenic exposure analysis from moraines and erratics onshore will constrain the onshore deglaciation.

This combined approach will build a more detailed picture of the timing and forcing of glacial dynamics in this region and will provide important information on the stability of marine based ice sheets and their deglacial behaviour during deglaciation.