MAREANO survey underway

This year’s study, coordinated by the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, will include coral reefs at Sula Reef outside South Trøndelag, several fishing areas along the route Kristiansund-Halten, and selected areas of the Møre Bank and Storegga North.

All MAREANO cruises are equipped with the ‘Campod’ custom-built video rig, used to video record benthic habitat and organisms.

As well as corals, researchers will also investigate the condition of areas where corals are likely to occur, and they will conduct through mapping of these areas.

“Previous surveys have been focused on corals. As consequence, we have little knowledge of benthic areas where corals do not occur. Benthic areas off the coast of mid-Norway are rich in sea life and have high fish productivity. During this cruise, we expect to find several new reefs, in addition to the area with gas-seep communities and sponge beds,” says cruise coordinator, Pål Buhl-Mortensen.

Mr Buhl-Mortensen says that one of the major goals of the project is to map benthic habitats, including areas which appear drab and boring, muddy and grey, or sandy and lifeless.

“In areas such as these we can make exciting new discoveries. In such benthic habitats, animals live buried within the sediments. Only through close investigation it is possible to uncover and describe the wealth of small organisms inhabiting them”, he said.

Altogether, samples from an area of 6590km² are collected when the cruise is finished the second week of October. Initially, the Iverrigde, the reef complex at Sula, and parts of the Møre banks will be surveyed using the Campod video rig. Survey results describing these areas must be completed by September 2013 to support scheduled revision of the plan for Integrated Management of the Norwegian Sea. During the latter part of the survey, outer regions of the Møre banks will be investigated using various bottom-sampling techniques.