Magnetic data from the North Sea ocean bottom
In order to map out the terrain for building, those seeking to extract energy sources from the ocean bottom also gather magnetic data. University of Bradford archeologists are using information from the Earth’s magnetic field to field prehistoric European villages submerged beneath the North Sea.
These experts are particularly looking into Doggerland, a selection of territory that once linked mainland Europe with the eastern coast of Great Britain, according to a report from the University.
https://www.bradford.ac.uk/archaeological-forensic-sciences/research/europes-lost-frontiers/
The National Geographic website shows the area that is now the ocean was once made up of succession of sloping hills, marshes, forested valleys, and bogs about 12,000 years ago.
The institution already has a staff working on a project called “Europes’s Lost Frontiers” that focuses on Doggerland. Based on assessments of tools and other artefacts buried in the ocean bottom, both the Lost Frontiers data and National Geographic concur that Doggerland was once inhabited by people.
The UK University of Bradford archaeologists’ magnetometry
Magnetometry has previously been used by terrestrial archaeologists but has not been used extensively to examine submerged landscapes. The University of Bradford could study thanks to a donation £50,000 from the David and Claudia Harding Foundation in Marine Palaeolandscapes.
How is magnetic data collected? Magnetic data is collected by companies looking to extract oil, gas and minerals from the seabed, and increasingly by offshore wind farming companies, to understand the landscape ahead of construction.
Exploration mainly looks for shipwrecks and unexploded wartime weapons and bombs. Magnetometers are instruments which look similar to torpedoes, which are dragged through the water by cables attached to survey vessels to survey the magnetic fields on the seabed.
Lost civilisation Doggerland in North Sea
Between roughly 20,000 BCE and 4,000 BCE, Doggerland was one of the most resource rich and ecologically diverse areas. The end of the last ice age and subsequent global warming caused it to be submerged at the bottom of the ocean.
The study shows most of the artefacts found so far have been found by accident, making it difficult to learn anything about Doggerland’s early residents.
Data collection is competing among oil firms, offshore wind farms and university teams
There’s a slim possibility that this analysis will even turn up proof of hunter-gatherer activity because the region the team is investigating used to be above sea level. The highest point would be that.
According to the website of National Geographic, a lot of the seismic data that scientists use originates from oil firms that conduct North Sea drilling operations.
The University reports archaeologists are now in competition with wind fields, not oil firms, and Ph.D student Ben Urmston is on the case. He will be on the lookout for magnetic field abnormalities that might point to the existence of prehistoric ruins.
This will enable him and his team to discover new information without diving into the North Sea. Skull of a woolly mammoth found by fishers in the North Sea, now on display at the Celtic and Prehistoric Museum in Ireland.
This will be one of the few efforts to use magnetometry, the study technique will be using, to investigate an underwater environment. Until now, this technique has mainly been used by “terrestrial archaeologists”.
In order to map out the terrain for building, those seeking to extract energy sources from the ocean bottom also gather magnetic data. According to the University study, offshore wind farming firms have also started competing for Doggerland property.
The United Kingdom joined a large number of other countries in pledging to achieve net zero carbon pollution by the year 2050. The University study claims that one aspect of that plan entails increasing offshore wind power, which will ultimately render some of Doggerland completely unavailable to scientists.
To collect as much information as they can now, the University of Bradford archaeologists are collaborating with climate experts and technologies.
Subtle variations in the magnetic field can reveal changes in the environment, such as peat-forming regions and sediments or areas where erosion has taken place, such as in river courses.
The team added that they might also come across middens, which are trash heaps made up of animal bones, gastropod shells, and other organic material and can reveal a lot about how people lived.
Source: The University of Bradford
