Ocean And Earth Day Shows Off Europe's Top Oceanography Centre

3.38.20pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 22nd Mar 2004

Chris Huhne MEP and ISIS

The Southampton Oceanography Centre opened its doors for a special ocean and earth day as part of National Science Week on Saturday.

The event was visited by Hampshire MEP Chris Huhne accompanied by Centre Director Professor Howard Roe and Southampton University vice-chancellor Professor Bill Wakeham (pictures attached).

'The Southampton Oceanography Centre is the leading marine research centre in Europe, and I am delighted that EU funding forms the largest external part of its funding for more than one thousand staff and students' said Mr Huhne.

Mr Huhne said that the importance of the Centre's work both for south Hampshire and the country as a whole could hardly be overestimated. 'The Centre is at the cutting edge of research that can determine, for example, whether Britain will suffer plunging temperatures if the gulf stream changes its flows due to global warming.

'And locally the Centre has already started to spin off commercially exciting projects such as one recent venture to make oil and gas discovery easier, which will net the university about £3 million' said Mr Huhne.

'I was particularly impressed by the remote controlled vehicle ISIS that the centre uses to take samples from ocean floors as deep as 6 kilometres, and also by the extraordinary example of bendy rock - a sandstone impregnated with mica that literally bends like a piece of steel' said Mr Huhne.

The Ocean and Earth day included many standing exhibits of research in progress at the centre, including fossils, rocks, marine archaeology, oil drilling bits, models of research equipment including ocean mapping devices and special buoys that levitate up and down in the oceans to record currents and send back information by satellite.

In addition, the programme of events included several talks on aspects of the centre's work on climate change, energy generation from the oceans, and living beings in the oceans.

Ends

Notes to Editors

The Photo is of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton Professor Bill Wakeham and his son, Chris Huhne MEP and Professor Howard Roe, Director of the Southampton Oceanography Centre inspecting ISIS, the new UK Remote Operated Vehicle that is based at the Southampton Oceanography Centre, UK."

See http://www.soc.soton.ac.uk/chess/isis_seatrials.html for further

details of ISIS.