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Energy, Climate change, Environment

Geology

EMODnet Geology - Sea-floor (bedrock)

EMODnet Geology has succeeded in bringing together harmonised offshore data including sea-floor geology, seabed substrates, rates of coastline migration, geological events and probabilities, mineral resources and submerged landscapes.
EMODnet Geology Portal consolidates the existing data products with higher resolution and more contents. New services are being built, so users can investigate and search for borehole and grab sample data, seismic survey data, and multibeam survey data using interactive maps and tools.

EMDOnet Geology aims at providing harmonised information on marine geology in Europe for the entire European seas.

Objectives

The geology portal provides open access to geological data and metadata held by various geoscience organisations in Europe, lending us a better understanding of the ocean seafloor and its resources. The data is delivered in accordance with international standards, and geological data products compiled at scales of 1:1,000,000, 1:250,000 and 1:100,000 or finer where the underlying data permit. A geographical coverage includes all the regional seas in Europe, Caspian Sea and the latest addition, Caribbean Sea.

Geology - Sea regions

Data Products

EMDOnet Geology aims at providing harmonised information on marine geology in Europe for the entire European seas. The following data products are already available for Geology:

  • Seabed Substrates and Sedimentation rates;
  • Sea-floor Geology: Pre-Quaternary geology (incl. lithology and stratigraphy), Quaternary geology and geomorphology;
  • Coastal Behavior: Satellite and Field data based Coastal behavior, Coastal types;
  • Geological Events and Probabilities (e.g. earthquakes, submarine landslides, volcanoes, and Quaternary tectonics, landslide susceptibility);
  • Marine minerals (e.g. aggregates, hydrocarbons, gas hydrates, marine placers, polymetallic nodules);
  • Submerged landscapes;
  • Entity indexes (borehole and grab samples, Seismic and multibeam survey data).

Background

Partnership

The partnership consists of 40 partners or subcontractors from 30 countries. Most of them are geological survey organisations of all the maritime countries of the European Union. Twenty-four of the project partners are also members of the Geological Surveys of Europe (EuroGeoSurveys), which exists to promote the work of the geological surveys and therefore provides a long-term association under which the project partners collaborate.

As the principal holders of marine geological information, the partnership also ensures that data from all of the European regional seas, as well as the Caspian Sea and the Caribbean Sea are provided to the project. The project will build on information primarily held by the project partners but will also connect to other owners of information using Web Map Services (WMS), as for example by linking to the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre (EMSC), which compiles information on earthquake activities. By doing so, the project will not recreate information that is held elsewhere. The development of a web delivery mechanism using open-source standards also aim to ensure the long-term sustainability of the project by delivering the best available and up-to-date marine geological information held by the project partners.

A characteristic of the EMODnet-Geology Project is that the focus is on harmonised interpreted map information rather than the underlying data that have been used to create the interpreted geological outputs. However, the web delivery system is designed to be able to access data catalogs of information held by each partner organisation and therefore has the potential to access more detailed information (maps and data) at national level. This aspect of the system is considered important to the long-term sustainability of the EMODnet Geology outputs as it will provide access to the national sources of information where the partner organisations maintain their information resources.

You can find the full and update list of the consortium on the following section of the website “Partners”.