Sandbank to the East of the Isle of Man (2004 - 2006)
The aim of this project was to survey and map a
sandbank to the east of the Isle of Man within the
UK
offshore marine area, and to assess the area against the
SAC site selection criteria.
Surveying was carried out on three seperate AFBI funded research
cruises in November 2004 aboard the RV Lough Foyle, in May
2005 and February 2006 aboard the RV Corystes. In November
2004 the cruise concentrated on collecting grab
samples due to poor weather. During May 2005
RoxAnn acoustic data, video and sidescan sonar
datasets were collected with additional RoxAnn and sidescan data
being collected during the February 2006 cruise. During the
February 2006 cruise a remotely operated vehicle was
deployed over a small number of sites to complement the
video groundtruthing gathered in May 2005.
Final habitat maps were produced by using the acoustic data and
groundtruth data. It was found that there were correlations between
the infaunal biotopes identified from the grab samples and the
RoxAnn acoustic ground type map. Habitat polygons
were delineated by hand in GIS to create a series of
non-overlapping polygons, each of which were given the relevant
biotope code.
The biotopes
SS.SMx.CMx.MysThyMx,
SS.SSa.IMuSa.EcorEns overlaying
SS.SSa.IMuSa.FfabMag,
SS.SCS.ICS.MoeVen and
SS.SSa.CFiSa.EpusOborApr were found.
Further reading
- Mitchell, A., Mellor, A., Strong, J., Service, M. 2008.
Broadscale seabed habitat survey of a sandbank to the east of the
Isle of Man. JNCC Report 409.
Project Partners
If you have any further questions about JNCC's offshore survey
work then please contact us.