This report is a contribution to the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA4) conducted by the Department of Trade and Industry (now Department of Energy and Climate Change). The report is a summary of published data and interpretations describes the surficial seabed geology and geological processes affecting the continental shelf part of the SEA4 area, lying in water depths of less than 200 m. Roughly half of the SEA4 area lies in these water depths.
The report reviews the seabed geomorphology, near-bottom currents, types of rock outcrop, variations in the texture of the unconsolidated sediments, the variety and distributions of seabed bedforms and selected aspects of the inorganic geochemistry of the sediments. Variations in the seabed geology have a major influence on the organisms that live on the bottom, thus are important to understanding the modern seabed habitat. The modern seabed environment now largely reflects the effects of reworking by near-bottom currents on the topography and the sediments that originated during the glaciations.