Marine Operations
BGS Science Facilities
The engineers of the BGS Marine Operations team are a highly experienced team that have undertaken both scientific and commercial offshore projects within UK waters and internationally, from inshore to mid-ocean regions, and from polar to tropical environments.
The Marine Operations team has expertise in:
- Seabed coring and drilling operations using our suite of remote seabed corers
- Marine geophysical surveys using the latest in multibeam sonar equipment
- Loch, lake and inshore surveys using the BGS survey vessel: the White Ribbon
- Providing support for the International Ocean Discovery Programme
Marine Operations work out of a dedicated purpose-built building (the George Bruce Building) which is part of the Lyell Centre complex based at The Heriot-Watt Riccarton research campus. This facility is fully equipped with internal gantry cranes and container moving equipment and a 7 m deep test tank as well as a test borehole for carrying out onshore equipment testing.
Previous projects
Seabed coring and drilling equipment
RD1 – Rotary rock drill and vibrocorer
The unique BGS combined rotary rock drill and vibrocoring system, RD1, offers the versatility of two sampling systems on one rig. It can penetrate to 5m below seabed in rotary coring mode and 6m below seabed in vibrocoring mode and operates down to water depths of 2000m.
RD2 – Robotic rotary rock drill and corer
The BGS Remote Drill Two, RD2, is our most advanced seafloor robotic drilling and coring system. It can penetrate up to 50m below the seabed and operate down to water depths of 4000m.
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Sea floor: marine geoscience
The marine geoscientists at BGS provide independent and expert geological advice, research and data acquisition to anyone working in the marine environment.
Sea floor: scientific ocean drilling
Since 2003, BGS have implemented several high profile expeditions for the European Consortium for Ocean Research Drilling (ECORD).