MAIN ONE and BT NORTH Cable System Survey
In 2019, with the assistance of Seaforth Geosurveys, Maritech International completed four marine route surveys onboard the R/V Med Surveyor. Included in the projects were two West African cable routes for the MAIN ONE submarine communications cable system, one off the coast of Senegal and one landing in the Ivory Coast. Later that same year, two additional routes were surveyed for BT North’s system, one between the UK and the Netherlands, as well as one between the UK and Belgium.
These cable route surveys supplied geophysical and geotechnical data with the purpose of determining safe routes for cable system design, deployment, survivability and subsequent maintenance. This data also allowed for decisions to be made on inquiries relating to cable armoring and burial, the identification of route obstacles and cable hazards, and for providing detailed information to support cable routes and installation engineering accordingly.
Following data acquisition, SubCom subcontracted Seaforth Geosurveys Inc. for their expertise in data processing and ultimately the production of all associated Alignment and Northup charts accurately depicting the route survey data. The entirety of the survey included the acquisition of multibeam bathymetry and sidescan sonar data, subbottom profiles, magnetometer readings, CPT casts and seafloor coring at points of interest throughout the route corridors.