British Geological Survey

The British Geological Survey (BGS) is a public sector organisation, advising the Government on all aspects of geoscience, and providing impartial advice to academia, industry and the general public. BGS is part of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), who reports to the Office of Science and Innovation.

NERC and BGS both regard climate change as being one of the dominant scientific research themes of our time. BGS Marine Geoscience, based in Edinburgh, are in talks with other national and international geological surveys, organisations and university departments with a view to setting up an Arctic research program, to try and further understand the feedback mechanisms that impact on our climate.

During the 2008 Disko Bay Expedition a team from the British Geological Survey joined the expedition to run extensive surveying of the seabed in the Arctic and learn more about the geology of the area. The science team from BGS ran five tracts in different locations, measuring between 2 and 12 miles.  They used sound waves to image the submarine landscape and the team successfully uncovered beautifully imaged deep channels that had become infilled with up to 250m of sediments. They gained data from a variety of settings, and showed that the penetration of the sound waves is possible in an area initially thought to be problematic due to the volcanic rocks and also the type of glacial deposits that can be very coarse and difficult to image through.

With further work in this area it will be possible to start to piece together a sea-level, glacial retreat / advance story and start to assess the historical impact of climate change cycles.

Related Links