View new data on Infomar Image Webmapping Site

New data is now available on the Infomar Image Webmapping site and in the INFOMAR webmapping services from the following surveys:

Geo11_01 - Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
KRY11_01 -  Waterford Harbour
Geo11_02 - Waterford Harbour
KRY12_02 – Bunmahon, Co. Waterford
CV11_MeshAtlantic - Kenmare Bay,  Kerry/Cork
CV12_SEAI_Clare - West of Clare
KRY11_03 -  Killard Point, Co. Clare
KRY11_03 – South of Achill Island, Co. Mayo
Geo11_04 - South of Achill Island, Co. Mayo

These are primarily near shore surveys and the location of these new surveys is shown in yellow in the map.

These surveys were carried out by the R.V. Keary, the R.V. Geo and the R.V. Celtic Voyager.  Data produced from these surveys include bathymetry grids, shaded relief and a backscatter images, tracklines and survey polygons.

This image shows bathymetry data from survey around Inishbofin, Inishshark and south of Achill Island.

This is a shaded relief image of bathymetry data collected in Kenmare Bay.

The survey of Kenmare Bay was carried out by the Mesh Atlantic project with support from the INFOMAR project in terms of personnel and equipment. The Mesh Atlantic partnership is compromised of IFREMER, IMA, DIREN Bretagne (France), Marine Institute (Ireland), AZTI, IEO (Spain), ICNB, INRB, Universities of Aveiro, Azores, Algarve (Portugal).

In addition there is also new data on the website for sediment samples.  This includes historical samples in Zone 3 and particle size analysis results for sediment samples taken in 2011 and 2012.

Please note:

• All of the image layers on this website are also available as WMS services which can be used in ESRI ArcGIS Desktop, ArcGIS Explorer online and other freely available mapping packages, see the Google kml and WMS Links page for details.

• It is possible to download data used in the site. Use the   button in the tool bar at the top right of the page to click and drag a box around an area of interest, the tool will open our IWDDS download site and you then select the type of data you are interested in downloading.

Please note also to improve performance some of these layers are cached locally onto your computer as you browse the website.  In order to see new data it is necessary to clear the local cache and reload the page.  To do this in:

• Internet Explorer: click Tools > Delete Browsing History >Check Temporary Internet Files and click Delete.

• Mozilla Firefox: click Tools > Clear Recent History > Check Cache and click Clear Now

• Google Chrome: in the Chrome menu select Tools > Clear browsing data > Check Cache and click Clear Browsing data 

The R.V Keary @ Waterford Tallships Festival 2011

The RV Keary, a 15m aluminium catamaran is a state-run marine research survey vessel built for and operated by the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI). Its primary function is to provide an inshore survey capability for the national INFOMAR programme (INtegrated Mapping FOr the Sustainable Development of Ireland’s MArine Resource).

The RV Keary’s first INFOMAR survey leg of 2011 took place in Waterford Harbour, starting in mid-April and finishing in mid-June.

Click here for more information.

The campaign focused on mapping the navigational channel in advance of the Tall Ships Festival which took place at the end of June, with mapping of the shallower areas along the river banks and shore being carried out by the GSI's 7.5m RIB, RV Geo. This was the first time that both vessels have worked in tandem.

Having successfully mapped the estuary the RV Keary was invited to participate in the Tall Ships Festival. The RV Keary was positioned in Waterford Marina beside The Revenue Commissioners customs cutter, the RCC Faire. The Keary was open to the public from Thursday afternoon June 29th until Saturday evening on July 2nd.


Seabed mapping of the estuary took place in an area west of the city's Rice Bridge to the open sea at the mouth of Waterford Harbour.
Visitors to the Tall Ships event were invited onboard in groups of approximately 15, and those waiting for the tour were informed of the INFOMAR programme through the display of posters outlining the history of the RV Keary and the INFOMAR programme attached to the vessel’s hull.

The tour commenced on the back deck where a brief introduction to the RV Keary, the 'Real Map of Ireland', the GSI, Marine Institute (MI), INFOMAR project and the survey acquisition systems and instrumentation was provided. Visitors were also shown the mapping tools used onboard such as the side scan sonar, the magnetometer and the grab sample equipment on the back deck and invited to ask questions on any aspect of the INFOMAR programme.

Following this, the groups were presented with an overview of the data acquired during the Waterford Harbour survey on the data processing pc. Features of interest in the data were highlighted, in particular a 60m shipwreck discovered opposite the marina in Waterford city. This vessel is believed to be the cargo ship the S.S. Harvard, dating from 1870, now embedded in a scour feature in the river bank just a kilometre from where the R.V. Keary was berthed. Also of great interest was the detailed imagery of whirlpool scours (dark blue - purple), created where the river flow meets the tide.



Next the group was invited to view the 'pod' which is located in the middle of the vessel between the two hulls. The pod is designed to accommodate the geophysical equipment onboard such as the single beam head, multibeam heads, chirp, USBL transceiver and SV sensor in one housing. The pod is mounted on a hydraulic ram that can raise and lower the instrumentation into and out of the water. Once the pod has been lowered into the survey position, lateral rams lock the pod in place to ensure that the system is stable and the instrumentation is in the same position each time the pod is moved.

Finally, a tour of the bridge and its instrumentation was provided. The Navigation and Communication Equipment was explained including the POS MV (GPS technology) which logs all motion information in space and time, allowing the removal of the vessels motion from the sonar and shallow seismic datasets. Also, the forward looking sonar which provides information about the nature and depth of the seabed ahead of the Keary and the auto pilot steering of survey lines. A 3D fly-through of Waterford Harbour on display generated huge interest with visitors receiving a 3D visual of the seabed of Waterford harbour.

To the delight of the visitors onboard, RV Keary and Real Map of Ireland postcards were distributed along with copies of Inshore Ireland ( with Keary articles), and information on the copper coast geopark project and Marine Institute, not forgetting our younger visitors, the kiddies who received lollipops! The visitors were then free to explore the front deck of the vessel and take photographs.

Over 1,000 people came onboard to visit the RV Keary on guided tours over the three days and the positive feedback and interest in the INFOMAR programme and the data being acquired was exceptional.

On the final day of a highly successful Tall Ships event, the RV Keary participated in the 'Parade of Sails' on Sunday 3rd July. The parade was led by the naval vessel the L.E. Aoife, followed by the RCC Faire with the RV Keary in third position ahead of the biggest tallship the Russian owned 'Mir' and the remainder of the Tall Ships fleet.

Visit our Flickr site for more photos.

KRY11_01 Waterford Harbour

The RV Keary’s first INFOMAR survey leg of 2011 took place in Waterford Harbour, starting in mid-April and finishing in mid-June. INFOMAR is a joint research program between the Geological Survey of Ireland (GSI) and the Marine Institute (MI). The campaign focused on mapping the navigational channel in advance of the Tall Ships Festival at the end of June, with mapping of the shallower areas along the river banks and shore being carried out by the GSI's 7.5m RIB, RV Geo. This was the first time that both vessels have worked in tandem, and this proved to be a very effective approach to mapping an area of seabed from deeper waters right up to the shoreline.

The survey area itself contained an existing dataset that was mapped by the RV Celtic Voyager in 2007, which provided coverage of the harbour approaches from the 10m contour to greater depths offshore (first image below). Both the RV Keary and Geo overlapped their coverage with this previous dataset, producing a comprehensive and seamless seabed map of the area (second image).

Waterford Harbour proved to be both an interesting and challenging environment to survey given the complex currents and steep waves which resulted in challenging sea states in even the calmest of weather. Complicated current patterns and hidden shoals required great skill on the part of the skippers to safely navigate the estuary from Rice Bridge to the harbour mouth, at times needing to manoeuvre the vessels through swirling whirlpools and shifting eddies. Some of the survey lines were run with the vessels “crabbing” sideways against the powerful river and tidal currents that attempted to push them off course. In addition constant changes in salinity and temperature brought about by the interaction of fresh and salt water required that regular sound velocity profiles (SVPs) were carried out. The SVPs were necessary because the sonar systems used to map the seabed measure the travel time of sound waves through the water. As water temperature and salinity differ from within and between survey areas, so too does the speed of sound. Therefore these effects must be corrected for in order to accurately map the seabed. The SVP data were acquired by lowering a probe into the water column, measuring the temperature and salinity of the water and therefore providing the survey team with a record of the sound velocity profile in a given location at a given time (the water column structure can also change over time). By conducting regular sound velocity casts in Waterford Harbour, the team ensured that the final dataset would require minimal processing to correct for errors created by the complicated water structure. The advantage of acquiring this data is that the information gathered during the survey constitute a unique dataset which can have additional use in the study of the local oceanography of the area.

The seabed area surveyed yielded a host of interesting patterns and features, all of which were captured in detailed 3D imagery by the Keary and Geo’s state of the art mapping instrumentation - not the least of these was a 60m shipwreck discovered opposite the marina in Waterford city. This vessel is believed to be the cargo ship the S.S. Harvard, dating from 1870, and now embedded in a scour feature in the river bank. In the top-left corner of the image below, what may be a spar is visible jutting out from the bow, which could show that this was a sailing vessel. She ran aground on Cromwell’s rock while attempting to anchor. At the time she was transporting a cargo of copper ore and oranges from Huelva, Spain to Liverpool, United Kingdom. The second image shows a 3D view of the Harvard wreck, with the river bank rising on the right of the image.

Below is an image of a possible pipeline running across the main channel in the harbour mouth. The purple boundary on the chart background is a “no-anchorage” zone that has been marked out to enclose the pipeline’s possible location. Following the Keary’s survey, a feature that may be the pipe is visible in the imagery below (marked with a red arrow).

Other interesting seabed features include possible sand waves generated by the currents, scours that may have been carved out by circulating eddies and prominent outcrops of bedrock. These rock outcrops are interesting as they may be sheets of igneous rock that were intruded into the surrounding sedimentary rock many millions of years ago – otherwise known as igneous “dykes". They have been found elsewhere in this region by geologists mapping onshore.

Along with being interesting from a geological perspective, these rocks could also pose a serious hazard to navigation if a vessel were to venture away from the main shipping channel. Below is a series of images of the features mentioned above.

"Maulus Rock", a possible igneous dyke. The top half of the image shows the rock enclosed in a red rectangle, while the bottom half shows it in profile, 3D view.

Scours on the river bed

Possible wave structures on the river bed.


Shoals and deeps where the river Barrow (top-right) meets the river Suir.

Below is a series of images of the two vessels at work in Waterford Harbour. The first image shows the RV Keary and RV Geo arriving at Dunmore East.

An aft view of the RV Keary, showing the A-frame which is used to deploy sound velocity probes to measure ocean temperature and salinity.

The first of the tall ships arrives in advance of the Tall Ships 2011 festival.