§ Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science, what proportion of the United Kingdom Continental Shelf and probable 200-mile exclusive economic zone has been covered by a comprehensive geophysical survey; and what proportion of this area has been covered by modern thematic maps at reasonably large scale to show details of the sea bed and geophysical anomalies.
§ Mr. MulleyTaking the area of the zone, excluding Rockall, as 254,000 square miles, the answer to the first part of the Question is about 25 per cent. Geophysical and other data resulting from the surveys, at scales varying from 1:100,000 to 1:250,000, have been published or may be inspected at the Institute of Geological Sciences, South Kensington, for the following proportions of the zone:
Gravity 25 per cent. Airborne Magnetic 10 per cent. Shallow seismic 30 per cent. Deep seismic 10 per cent. Bathymetric 18 per cent. Geological (sediments) 17 per cent. (information not up to publication standard is available for a further 30 per cent.) Geological (solid) 25 per cent (information not up to publication standard is available for a further 35 per cent.) Some data have been obtained for larger areas, but this is not generally available for reasons of commercial confidence.