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Inproceedings Reference Backscatter stability and influence of water column conditions: estimation by multibeam echosounder and repeated oceanographic measurements, Belgian part of the North Sea
The European Union Marine Strategy Framework Directive requires Member States to monitor and assess the health status of their marine habitats. Belgium put forward that the spatial extent and distribution of the major habitats (sandy mud to mud, muddy sands to sands and coarse-grained sediments), as well as that of gravel beds may only fluctuate within a margin that is limited to the accuracy of the current sediment distribution maps. Due to their ability to provide simultaneous bathymetry and backscatter strength (BS), reflecting seabed nature, multibeam echosounder systems (MBES) provide a time- and costefficient solution to anticipate on this legal obligation. However, as there is no formal quality level scale for the BS and consequently no level of reliability of the final decibel values, evaluating the BS quantitative capabilities to monitor habitat changes remains challenging. In a monitoring context, it is absolutely necessary to investigate to what extent the mean MBES-measured BS variation -from one cruise to another- actually represents a significant change in seabed properties and not only a change in the conditions of the water column (e.g., variation in near-bed suspensions, biological effects, increased occurrence of micro bubbles in the sea surface due to wind) at the time of the measurement. In order to evaluate the relative accuracy and the repeatability of MBES BS and to examine the external sources of variance in acoustic signatures, repeated measurements combining MBES with an Acoustic Doppler current Profiler (ADP) have been performed during tidal cycles on reference areas in the Belgian part of the North Sea. Currents and BS in the water column and vertical profiling of oceanographic parameters have been investigated allowing studying the influence of water column conditions on the BS. Measurements were conducted using two MBES systems to evaluate repeatability between echosounders. Ultimate goal is to arrive at seabed mapping and analyses protocols to obtain harmonized data products from a collaborative seabed mapping community.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Wave Glider Monitoring of Sediment Transport and Dredge Plumes in a Shallow Marine Sandbank Environment
As human pressure on the marine environment increases, safeguarding healthy and productive seas increasingly necessitates integrated, time- and cost-effective environmental monitoring. Employment of a Wave Glider proved very useful for the study of sediment transport in a shallow sandbank area in the Belgian part of the North Sea. During 22 days, data on surface and water-column currents and turbidity were recorded along 39 loops around an aggregate-extraction site. Correlation with wave and tidal-amplitude data allowed the quantification of current- and wave-induced advection and resuspension, important background information to assess dredging impacts. Important anomalies in suspended particulate matter concentrations in the water column suggested dredging-induced overflow of sediments in the near field (i.e., dynamic plume), and settling of finer-grained material in the far field (i.e., passive plume). Capturing the latter is a successful outcome to this experiment, since the location of dispersion and settling of a passive plume is highly dependent on the ruling hydro-meteorological conditions and thus difficult to predict. Deposition of the observed sediment plumes may cause habitat changes in the long-term.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Techreport Reference Degraer, S., Vigin, L., Brabant, R., (Eds), 2015. WinMon Outreach 2005-2015. MARECO report 15/02. 35 pp.
Windmills monitoring: outreach 2005-2015
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Techreport Reference Degraer, S., Vigin, L., Brabant, R., (Eds), 2015. WinMon Activity Report 2013-2014. MARECO report 15/01. 45 pp.
Wind monitoring Activity report 2013-2014.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Book Reference Environmental impacts of offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea. Learning from the past to optimise future monitoring programmes, 239 p.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Techreport Reference Working together on innovative monitoring strategies: adapting to nature, huge demands and grand challenges. VLIZ Young Scientists’ Day, 7/3/2014, Brugge, Abstract + Poster.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference First early Eocene tapiroid from India and its implication for the paleobiogeographic origin of perissodactyls
The presence of cambaytheres, the sister group of perissodactyls, in western India near or before the time of collision with Asia suggests that Perissodactyla may have originated on the Indian Plate during its final drift towards Asia. Herein we reinforce this hypothesis by reporting two teeth of the first early Eocene tapiromorph Perissodactyla from the Cambay Shale Formation of Vastan Lignite Mine (c. 54.5 Ma), Gujarat, western India, which we allocate to a new genus and species, Vastanolophus holbrooki. It presents plesiomorphic characters typical of the paraphyletic “Isectolophidae,” such as small size and weak lophodonty. However, the weaker hypoconulid and low paralophid, higher cusps, lower cristid obliqua, and the lingual opening of the talonid are found in Helaletidae, the most primitive tapiroid family. V. holbrooki, gen. et sp. nov., may be the oldest and the most primitive tapiroid, suggesting that at least tapiroid perissodactyls originated on India.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Flora and fauna from a new Famennian (Upper Devonian) locality at Becco, eastern Belgium
The Becco locality (Liège province), belongs to the Theux tectonic window and represents a proximal, probably fluvial, environment corresponding to a channel infill. We present here a preliminary report of the fossil assemblage discovered at the locality. The Becco site has yielded a diverse flora of early seed plants including Moresnetia zalesskyi, Dorinnotheca streeli and Condrusia sp. This assemblage, characteristic of the Belgian Famennian, highlights the diversity of early spermatophytes in the country. Becco has also delivered a rich vertebrate fauna with antiarch, groenlandaspid and phyllolepid placoderms, diplacanthiform acanthodians, as well as actinopterygians and various sarcopterygians. The fossiliferous assemblage of Becco resembles those of several Devonian tetrapod- bearing localities, including that of Strud in Belgium, and could therefore provide a favorable palaeoecological setting in the search for early tetrapods.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Techreport Reference Qualifying and quantifying offshore wind farm-generated noise
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Red Iron-Pigmented Tooth Enamel in a Multituberculate Mammal from the Late Cretaceous Transylvanian “Haţeg Island”
Mammals that inhabit islands are characterized by peculiar morphologies in comparison to their mainland relatives. Here we report the discovery of a partial skull associated with the lower jaws of a Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma) multituberculate mammal from the Carpathian “Haţeg Island” of Transylvania, Romania. The mammal belongs to the Kogaionidae, one of the rare families that survived the Cretaceous—Paleogene mass extinction in Europe. The excellent preservation of this specimen allows for the first time description of the complete dentition of a kogaionid and demonstration that the enigmatic Barbatodon transylvanicus presents a mosaic of primitive and derived characters, and that it is phylogenetically basal among the Cimolodonta. Another peculiarity is the presence of red pigmentation in its tooth enamel. The red coloration is present on the anterior side of the incisors and on the cusps of most of the teeth. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) analysis reveals that the pigmented enamel contains iron, as in living placentals. Such a red pigmentation is known in living soricine shrews and many families of rodents, where it is thought to increase the resistance of the enamel to the abrasion that occurs during “grinding” mastication. The extended pattern of red pigment distribution in Barbatodon is more similar to that in eulipotyplan insectivores than to that in rodents and suggests a very hard diet and, importantly, demonstrates that its grasping incisors were not ever-growing. As inferred for other endemic Transylvanian vertebrates such as dwarf herbivorous dinosaurs and unusual theropod dinosaurs, insularity was probably the main factor of survival of such a primitive mammalian lineage relative to other mainland contemporaries of the Northern hemisphere.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications