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    Colleen Finnegan

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    OMM Web Team

The University of Maine (UME) and the Office of the State Geologist of Maine representing the State of Maine have entered into a multi-year cooperative agreement with the Minerals Management Service (MMS) Leasing Division in September 2003. Overall objectives of the cooperative are to locate and assess the quality of sand and gravel resources situated on the continental shelf offshore of Maine. Such deposits of sand if determined to possess appropriate geotechnical qualities and to occur in suitable quantities could be available for possible future public works projects related to the protection from the impacts of storms, restoration of wetlands, and restoration of coastal beaches. The scientists associated with the cooperative have incorporated state of the art methods and investigative techniques in their research efforts. The initial project entitled, “Multi-Year Cooperative Assessment of Sand and Gravel Resources of the Inner Continental Shelf of Maine” has several goals set by the State and Federal investigators including;

	collection of approximately 500km of seismic and 77km2 of sidescan data simultaneously in central and outer Saco Bay,
	collection of approximately 25 vibracores from sand resource targets identified during the geophysical data collection and assessment,
	development of core and photographic records and sediment samples,
	accomplishment of grain size distribution analyses and organic carbon analyses,
	development of a Geographic Information System (GIS), integrate the new spatial data into the older database residing at the Maine Geological Survey and generate new inner continental shelf maps,
	completion of a report that includes GIS maps and data of the greater Saco Bay region and isopach maps of sand thickness. The maps and data will be available on CD that provides an interpretation of the geophysical observations and integrates seismic data with the vibracore logs.

Maine Department of Conservation Bureau of Geology and Natural Areas

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Last Updated: 04/28/2008, 06:44 AM