Ireland aims to be first to map its vast seabed territories

It's Davy Jones' Locker

Looking a little like a simplified map of the African sub-continent, Ireland's seabed territory covers a vast swath of the north-east Atlantic. Now, Irish geographers are aim to have their country to be the first in the world to complete the mapping of this seabed terrain, dubbed Davy Jones' Locker by sailors, that lies under its territorial waters.

The launch of GoogleOcean in 2009 now allows virtual tours of the seabed floor to be taken from any PC and the Irish seabed mapping programme is at the forefront of this last great mapping project for the planet. The latest data will be uploaded to GoogleOcean as part of the next release of the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans.

For those who can’t wait, the Irish surveys are in GoogleOcean format on the Infomar website, and can be freely accessed (www.infomar.ie). The data compiled enables hydrographic, sedimentary and biological maps to be drawn up and the Irish government is making all the information freely available, providing a boon for marine research into projects ranging from climate change to deep sea marine life forms.

A project begun by the Bounty's Capt William Bligh

Even for the Irish project, it will take a projected 25 more years to complete the project of using multi-beam sonar techniques to build up a detailed 3D picture of the ocean floors together with detailed analysis of what those floors consist of.

Relative to its land mass, Ireland has an enormous sea territory stretching hundreds of miles into the Atlantic and covering more than half a billion square kilometres, more than seven times its landmass territory. This measures 70,000 km2, the same as the state of North Dakota.

The seabed mapping project began in 1999, when the country’s Geological Survey of Ireland together with its Marine Institute began sonar mapping of 432,000 km2 of deepwater territory.

This was followed seven years later by the launch of the Infomar (Integrated Mapping for the Sustainable Marine Resource) project, focussing even more detailed analysis of 125,000 km2 of coastal waters. In some instances the seabed had not been surveyed since the old British Admiralty charts were first compiled by a team headed by Captain William Bligh in the 18^th century using plumb lines before he became infamous for being the victim of the mutiny on the Bounty in the south seas.

Vast trove of shipwreck sites discovered

By 2009 300 wrecks were identified by Infomar, 120 of which had never before appeared on a data, according to the Geological Survey of Ireland. In a lot of cases, further research is needed to identify what these wrecks are.

In addition, deepwater coral systems have been discovered that have stunned marine biologists.

The Infomar team has mapped inshore areas identified as priority ones, like the Shannon Estuary, DingleBay and DublinBay. Since 2006, detailed surveys have also been conducted along the south and west coast and in Galway, Sligo and Donegal Bays as well as other priority areas.

Who knows? Maybe even the lost city of Atlantis, sometimes reputed to lie off Ireland's west coast may be rediscovered.