SCUBAHUB
Purbeck ’ s finest meet the Duke of Cambridge
DIVERS FROM ISLE OF PURBECK Sub-Aqua Club have been awarded the Duke of Cambridge Scuba Prize for a project that solved a geological mystery from the age of the dinosaurs .
The Duke , who is President of BSAC , received the team at Kensington Palace , where he requested a presentation by project team leaders Peter Mensikov and Christopher Dunkerley . They were accompanied by team members Stephan Spiriak , Keith Coombs , Jeremy Goodall , Nick Reed and Dan Bosence . One of the team , Mike Wilson , has since passed away , and was awarded a posthumous certificate in recognition of his contribution to the project .
‘ Bumps in the Bay ’ was conducted by the Isle of Purbeck Sub-Aqua Club in liaison with Royal Holloway University .
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Underwater sonar surveys had revealed large circular structures in the Purbeck limestone , which have not been seen on land in any of the coastal cliffs or quarries despite more than a century of geological research . The structures were 120m in diameter and four to five miles offshore .
An initial analysis generated seven hypotheses for the formation of these structures , but there was no way of narrowing the field without the help of divers .
Members of the Isle of Purbeck Sub-Aqua club proposed a diving protocol to obtain seabed samples from these structures and obtained funding support from the British Sub-Aqua Jubilee Trust ( BSAJT ). Diving could only be carried out around neap tides , with a slack tide operational ‘ window ’ of only 40 minutes a day .
Planning identified 27 potential dive sites for sampling , of which seven were eventually chosen at depths down to 35m . The diving team successfully collected 32 fist-sized samples , which were subsequently analysed in a laboratory .
The project was successful , in that the seven initial hypotheses for the formation of the structures has been reduced to three and a preferred hypothesis identified ( Tufa mounds for the technically inclined ).
The award winners were accompanied by Mary Tetley , BSAC Chief Executive , Gavin Anthony , Chair of BSAJT and BSAC Scientific Advisor , and Dr Oliver Firth BSAJT trustee .
For more on the British Sub-Aqua Jubilee Trust , go to this issue ’ s Protect our Seas pages .