Irish researchers have secured a 10 per cent stake in a £13 million (€16 million) programme to study deep-water corals and carbonate mounds.
Scientists from three Irish universities and several other research groups have been grant-aided £1.3 million (€1.6 million) by the European Commission for the work. The details will be announced today by the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey, when he opens the 7th International Deep Sea Biology Symposium in NUI Galway.
The four projects - the Atlantic Coral Ecosystem Study (ACES), GeoMound, EcoMound and Stratagem - will focus on sea-floor features and occurrences which are at their most spectacular in Irish waters.
The Porcupine, Seabight and Rockall troughs contain many underwater hills and mounds, mostly composed of carbonate produced by marine organisms such as corals.
Over 20 leading European marine research institutes will be involved in the research which will complement the survey work planned for the Irish continental shelf.
The GeoMound and EcoMound projects aim to secure a better understanding of the dynamics of hydrocarbon sea-floor seepage, past climatic changes and the interaction between ocean current circulation and pelagic-benthic coupling.
The ACES project will focus on the lophelia or highly diverse and long-lived, deep-water coral communities living on top of the mounds. Strategem, an acronym for statigraphical development of the glaciated European margin, will examine the offshore sediment record to improve understanding of margin processes in deeper waters. This in turn aims to determine "safe and environmentally friendly" methods of developing oil fields which do not put the continental shelf margins under threat.
The Irish researchers are attached to the NUI colleges at Galway, Cork and Dublin, the Government's petroleum affairs division, EcoServe Ltd, and Marine Informatics Ltd.