Explore the Sea Floor

Find out what a marine scientist does

Lets explore the sea bed in the Bristol Channel and see what animals and habitats we can find

Explore the Sea Floor

What have scientists been doing?

How have they been doing it?

Why have they been doing it?

Explore the Sea Floor

Scientists have been taking samples of the sea bed from a boat

For 2 reasons:

To study the biology

To study the geology

Explore the Sea Floor

A grab removes a sample of the sea bed

The biology

The sample of sea bed is taken back to the ship

The animals are removed from the sample, identified and counted

Explore the Sea Floor

A graph is then plotted to show the sediment type

Samples of the sea bed sediment are taken

This is called sediment analysis

The sediment is weighed and sieved through different sized sieves

The geology

What happens next?

These studies means we can identify all the the habitat types

Muddy sand Gravelly Stoney

Sand Rock

What happens next?These are some of the animals found in the Bristol Channel

Shells

Crabs & shrimps

Worms

Sea

urchins

Fish

What happens next?

We can match the animal with its habitat

Muddy sand Gravelly Stoney

Sand Rock

Explore the Sea Floor

Geological data is also collected……..

Multibeam

Boomer

Sidescan Sonar

GPS Satellite

Explore the Sea FloorThis means we can look at the shape of the sea bed

Sonar uses sound waves which bounce off the sea bed and back to a receiver

This is what the geological data looks like:

Why explore the sea floor?

We need to knowwhat is there

so we canlook after it

The sea is used formany different things,

such as recreationand dredging

We can thereforecheck if any ofthese activities

have an effect on the habitat and

what lives there

Why explore the sea floor?

Now we can tellpeople about the life

on the sea floor

from school childrento scientists and

people in government

It is importantto look after the

environmentwe live in

Why don’t you

explore the sea floor?

have fun with this CD

go and explorethe sea floor

for yourselvessee what secrets

you can find