standardization of environmental data and information - International ...

software, that enabled users to know which species had been obtained at
various locations where the researchers had worked. The classification
software was organised according to the taxonomy of each group, so that,
as soon as the species was known, there were automatic links with phylum,
class, family, genus, etc.
For impact studies of the nodule area, it would be important to have
an ecologically oriented database in order to draw comparisons and analyse
temporal changes. The types of possible studies included analyses of
biodiversity, biogeography, relationships with physical and chemical
conditions, and intra-site temporal evolution of environmental parameters
and faunal composition. All such analyses could be part of impact studies
on global changes in the deep-sea ecosystem, whether for deep-sea mining
or fisheries, which had several approaches in common.
Future activities
IFREMER was interested in working in the French mineral
exploration area in the North Equatorial Pacific Ocean, Sibuet stated. Only
one thesis in biology had been done in that area under her direction, by
Virginie Tilot. However, this thesis had been based entirely on photographs,
and Sibuet thought it dangerous to rely only on photography because of the
difficulty of identifying fauna without specimens from a trawl. A photograph
showed only a distinction between invertebrates and fish, without enough
detail to make it worthwhile. The geological survey of the northeast and
southeast parts of the French area was nearly complete and the biological
investigation was practically done, using photography but with only a few
box-core samples, which were recorded in the Biocean database. They
included some macrofauna but almost nothing from the western part of the
area. Samples had been obtained in 1988 and 1991 cruises with the
submersible Nautile, but after the sampling, they had been removed from
the basket and nothing had been brought on-board.
She outlined a proposal by IFREMER for a multidisciplinary cruise in
the coming five years, with the aim of complementing existing geological,
biological and environmental information on both main parts of the French
exploration area. Baseline geological knowledge would be sought on major
benthic components, with the help of a geologist from the Institute. There
would be a multibeam bathymetric survey and seismic sub-bottom profiling
to obtain information on sediment stratigraphy and the sedimentation level.
If the near-bottom survey was close enough to the bottom it could be used
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