Historic survey of Galway Bay

Written by Administrator

Wednesday, 18 July 2007

The first extensive survey of Galway Bay since 1850 is being undertaken by The Marine Institute and the Geological Survey of Ireland.
The survey, which is considered to be vitally important, will be undertaken by the national research vessel, RV Celtic Voyager. The vessel is fitted with a new high performance EM3002 shallow water multibeam echosounder system, which provides extremely high-resolution information. The system is designed for detailed seafloor mapping in water depths of up to 150 metres, which the surveyors say is perfect for Galway Bay.

The Integrated Mapping for the Sustainable Development of Ireland's Marine Resource (INFOMAR) survey is the second phase of the groundbreaking Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS), which has already mapped over 80 per cent of Ireland's 220 million acre marine territory.

The last full survey of Galway Bay was undertaken in 1850 by Captain GA Bedford for the British Admiralty. This survey was carried out without the benefit of modern technology, so it is expected that the new survey will uncover a large amount of new information.

The survey will work to the north of Ballyvaughan and will map seabed features such as the Aughinish Shoal and Finavarra Spit in the south of the bay and the Kilcolgan and Henry Ledges to the west of Tawin Island.

"We consider a modern survey of Galway Bay vitally important for a wide variety of reasons. Galway Bay is an important area for fisheries, aquaculture, shipping and as a port location. It is a natural gateway to the Atlantic from the West of Ireland, a major tourism asset and the home of a number of centres of excellence in marine science. It is already the location of our test site for ocean energy devices, and will also see the deployment of our new SMARTBAY remote environmental monitoring system in the near future," said Dr Peter Heffernan, CEO of the Marine Institute.

Comments (0) »