Groundbreaking for New World-Class
Ocean Research Centre
The Principal of the University of Aberdeen will lead the groundbreaking ceremony on Thursday, 31st August for a new centre established as part of the University of Aberdeen’s successful £4.2 million bid for sub-sea research. The new Oceanlab will be built at the University of Aberdeen’s Culterty Field Station, Newburgh, Aberdeenshire.
Located close to the centre of the North Sea oil industry, the Oceanlab will have direct access to the most sophisticated sub-sea industry suppliers in Europe. The building will have a large assembly area within which complete deep ocean lander systems can be integrated and tested. There will also be immersion and sea-water investigation tanks, a pressure vessel to test components and sub-assemblies, environmental and vibration test rigs, a suite with a dark room and image analysis suite, and offices for key personnel, visiting scientists and engineers.
It will be the first purpose-built ocean lander laboratory in the world. At present, research investigations are therefore typically confined to short visits to particular localities in periods of good weather. To understand processes and temporal changes in the oceans a more extended presence is required. This can be achieved using landers, which are sub-sea platforms that operate
independently of surface vessels. The role of the Oceanlab in developing a lander fleet therefore has the potential to massively enhance the capability of the UK marine research infrastructure.
The landers are capable of undertaking research missions at depths down to 6000m for periods of up to 12 months.
The University submitted its £4.2million application in March last year for the funding of a programme known as Autonomous Marine Environmental Research Stations (AutoMERS) in a joint proposal with the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS) Dunstaffnage Marine Laboratory and the Universities of Bristol and St Andrews from the Joint Infrastructure Fund (JIF), a one-off collaborative initiative between the Government and the Wellcome Trust announced in 1998 to improve the science infrastructure in the British higher education and research institutions.
Professor Monty Priede, who led the bid, said the new centre will attract visiting scientists and engineers from all over the world to develop and test experiments to be deployed in international research programmes.
“This new facility will enable engineers and scientists to work together, creating totally novel robot vehicles which will carry cameras, sonars and laser holography systems, allowing us to observe animals living as deep as 6,000 metres (3.5miles). It creates for the University of Aberdeen a world-class capability in exploring the world’s oceans. Using autonomous lander vehicles, we can go deeper than most manned submarines and stay there much longer.”
University of Aberdeen Principal C Duncan Rice said he was absolutely delighted to participate in the groundbreaking. He said: “To be able to start such a facility after receiving such a highly competitive and sought after award highlights the scientific strengths that Aberdeen University, as the leading institution, has in these areas.”
Further information from:
University Press Office on telephone +44 (0)1224-273778 or email a.ramsay@admin.abdn.ac.uk.