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A SURVEY SHIP IS SCANNING SRI LANKA’S CONTINENTAL SHELF TO ASCERTAIN ITS LIMITS

By Walter Jayawardhana

GEMS, a Belgian and UK-based company specializing in EEZ (exclusive economic zone) and UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea) studies is conducting the survey on behalf of the government of Sri Lanka (DEOCOM) as part of its outer continental shelf delimiting study, the company announced.

The objective is to acquire process and interpret necessary geophysical data and prepare Sri Lanka’s submission , under Annex II of Final Act of the United Nation’s Convention on the Law of the Sea to the UN Commission on the limits of the Continental Shelf.

The survey will acquire and process of marine geophysical data in the Bengal Sedimentary Fan off the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Sri Lanka.

The work will include acquisition of multichannel seismic reflection, refraction (deploying sonbuoys or other), gravity, magnetic and echo sounding data with precise positioning, preliminary onboard data processing and post processing data.

GEMS said SCAN Geophysical ASA has been awarded a contract from GEMS International N.V. (GEMS) for a 2D survey offshore Sri Lanka.

SCAN's survey ship M/V Geo Searcher using a 6,000m streamer and a 4,200 cu. ins. source array is acquiring the approximate two month survey scheduled to complete in September 2007.
"We are pleased to continue our work with GEMS in this region," said Stephane Touche, vice president and Chief Operating Officer of SCAN. "Having done UNCLOS work of this special nature in the past year, we expect to achieve good quality and productivity," he emphasized

The exclusive economic zone of Sri Lanka shall extend to the sea to a distance of 200 nautical miles or 370 kilometers from the baselines from which the territorial sea is measured.

The exclusive economic zone of Sri Lanka is said to be 517,000 square kilometers.
The primary outcome of the survey is the accurate identification and depth determination of the sediment/basement interface leading to the outer limit of the 1km sediment isopach. The Geophysical data are to be collected along a series of line traverses totaling approximately 6000 to 8000 km at water depths between 2500 m and 5500 m.

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