Tag : Variety

Washington: An undersea survey, which was held in the west of Africa, off the coast of Angola, has found that in response to the installation of a pipeline, the richness and variety of deep-sea floor species rises dramatically. The findings of the research were published in the journal 'Frontiers in Marine Science'. The study also revealed a large increase in the amount of litter on the seafloor, which was trapped against the pipeline.' "In a short space of time the installation of a pipeline led to increases in the abundance and diversity of marine life in most areas," said Daniel Jones, associate head of ocean geosciences at the National Oceanography Centre, UK, and author of this study. "We believe this could be related to the pipeline providing shelter and trapping organic matter that the animals feed on." He adds, "It was also surprising to see the huge amount of litter, which consisted of plastic bags, bottles and aluminium cans, as this is a remote area ranging from 700 to 1400 metres deep." Industry partnership A collaboration between the deep-sea researchers and the oil and gas industry, the study emerged from a routine industry inspection of the seafloor and pipeline. "We have a long-running collaboration with BP in Angola to use survey imagery material for science," explained Andrew Gates, co-author of this study, who is also based at the National Oceanography Centre. "We realized as soon as we saw the footage that it would allow us to explore how the marine life changed after the introduction of a pipeline. Doing this sort of survey is very difficult and expensive, so we were pleased to be able to make use of the footage to understand the deep-sea biology a bit better. This adds real value to video footage originally ...