Senior Professor Chris Bean, Head of the Geophysics Section in the School of Cosmic Physics, has been awarded a Science Foundation Ireland Research Infrastructure Award.

The project is entitled “Insitu Marine Laboratory for Geosystems Research” (iMARL) and it will initiate the development of the first permanent sea-floor seismic, tsunami and marine acoustic observatory in the Irish NE Atlantic.

SFI Announcement here.

Ireland has an ocean territory ten times larger than its terrestrial landmass. Geological, oceanographic and biological processes mutually interact on a daily basis in this vast territory. Continuously recording offshore sensors are required to monitor this activity. Here we establish the Insitu Marine Laboratory for Geosystems Research (iMARL) comprising Ocean Bottom Seismographs (OBSs), Temperature and Acoustic Recorders. Strapped to sea-bed landers and deployed on the sea floor this equipment will allow for the detections of offshore earthquakes and offshore storms, as well as noise in the ocean and biologically generated acoustic signals (e.g. from whales). Impacts include: natural resources quantification, natural hazard estimation, environmental and baseline climate related insitu ocean monitoring. A pilot tsunami detection system will also be installed as part of the network.