AFTER AN eight month programme involving ship trials, performance and functional testing, Lloyd's Register has issued a Type Approval certificate for the MariNOx emission monitoring system developed by Martek Marine.

The MariNOx system is said to offer an alternative to the Parameter Check Method route to compliance with the MARPOL Annex VI and NOx Technical Code due to enter into force on 18 May 2005 (MER, March 2005, pp30-31).

Simultaneously BP Shipping announced the results of 90-day performance trial of the technology on the 114 761dwt British Merlin crude carrier. Installation of the system was completed by two Martek engineers in a single day without disruption to normal vessel operation and was subsequently tested over the full range of engine operation. The crew conducted three separate monthly onboard NOx verification cycles, each taking no longer than one hour to complete. These confirmed the engine was operating within allowable NOx emission limits, with results produced in a format suitable to prove compliance with the new MARPOL regulations. Katherine Palmer, BP Shipping Environmental Adviser said: 'The equipment fully met with our expectations to demonstrate compliance with the NOx technical code requirements.'

Martek says a larger second trial is planned where the system will be equipped with additional gas species measurement channels to help reduce overall emissions.

The company has opened a regional office in Hong Kong to serve the Asia Pacific market and later intends to establish a presence in Japan. With the deadline to enforcement date for the new regulations imminent, the company is planning an official launch at the Nor-Shipping exhibition taking place in early June.

In January a new iceberg formed around Antarctica when it broke off from the Larsen Ice Shelf, said the US National Ice Centre (NIC) based in Suitland, Maryland. This latest development shortly follows a near collision between the world’s largest iceberg — measuring about the size of Long Island, New York — and the Drygalski Ice Tongue glacier.

The NIC discovered the new iceberg, named A-53, using satellite imagery from the Canadian Space Agency. It measures 35 nautical miles on its longest axis and 16 nautical miles on its widest axis. The Larsen Ice Shelf is a large sheet of glacial ice and snow, extending along the eastern portion of the Palmer Peninsula, within the westernmost section of the Weddell Sea. A-53 is centred near 67.2S 60.5W. Iceberg names are derived from the Antarctic quadrant where they are first sighted. When they are first spotted, the NIC documents an iceberg’s point of origin.

Some icebergs of similar size that have broken off from the Larsen Ice Shelf have remained in the area for a while, while others have journeyed north,’ said Sean Helfrich, a meteorologist at the National Ice Centre. ‘A-53 likely will not leave the Weddell Sea this year, and may even break off into additional icebergs sometime this year.’

Bureau Veritas (BV) is to lead the way with a new EU-funded project aimed at cutting back on the time normally required to process the structural thickness studies of vessels.

A key driver is to be the development of a new range of electronic tools to promote faster dry dock and repair duties, while having the additional benefit to ship owners of smaller repair bills.

‘We will be working with a powerful team of expert partners on the CAS [Condition Assessment System] project,’ announced Pierre Besse, Research & Development Director for BV. ‘Together we will produce a tool which will have significant benefits for shipowners.

‘It will cut out the manual handling and interpretation of thickness measurements, and simplify the handling of all thickness data, right from the measurement through to using the data in the most complex condition assessment tools, allowing definitive repair decisions to be made on the spot.’

Intended to be a three-year project, CAS formally commenced on 1 February 2005, and other partners involved include fellow class societies Germanischer Lloyd and the Russian Shipping register, as well as Materiaal Metingen Europe, Sener, the Portuguese institute IST, Lisnave, Cybernetix, Intertanko and Total.

Primary focus will be to back-up the application in practice of the IMO Condition Assessment Scheme for older single hull tankers. At present, the scheme involves processing a plethora of data such as thickness measurements, visual assessments of coatings and visual inspection for cracking.

A system will be developed over the three years, of a simplified and flexible ship electronic model, which will include virtual reality and immediate worldwide access. It will facilitate systematic comparison and consistency checks of measurement campaigns, that will automatically trigger electronic alerts.

Repair decisions and residual lifetime of the structure will be calculated with modern methods of riskbased maintenance modelling, with the model being updated after each measurement campaign.

Although the system is to eventually be made available to vessels of all types, initial application will be targeted at tankers and bulk carriers.

[SOURCE MARITIME IT & ELECTRONICS]

Some massive earthquakes, such as the one that generated the recent tsunami in south Asia, are preceded by slight sinking along nearby coastlines two to five years before the rupture, said a new study by scientists from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys.

‘In areas along subduction zones, like the Northwest coast of the US, we should look to see where the land has subsided and put instruments there to monitor it,’ said Jere Lipps, a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology and study co-author. ‘If the land continues to subside instead of relaxing back to normal, it could indicate a big earthquake and a tsunami might occur some time in the next few years.’

Subduction zones are areas where one tectonic plate pushes under another, forming ridges and volcanoes. Earthquakes occur when the edge of the overlying plate sticks to the subducting plate, causing a slight dip nearest the zone and a slight bulge farther away. Eventually, the plates slip and result in massive movement, often generating a tsunami.

‘What we think happens is, two to five years before a quake, the plate boundary starts to drag down ever so slightly before it fractures,’ said David Scott, the Killam professor of Earth Sciences at Dalhousie University in Halifax. ‘Before that, you’ve got subsidence that is almost undetectable to the people living there. But you could detect it with a tiltmeter. We have shown that we can detect it in the paleoenvironment.’

The research team surveyed salt marshes along the Pacific coast from Alaska to northern California, taking 3.6m-deep cores to look for signs of past subsidence coinciding with evidence of a major earthquake, such as soil liquefaction and sand deposited by a tsunami. Subsidence is indicated by a temporary change in the types of microscopic organisms with shells — specifically foraminifera and thecamoebians — in the mud, as the formerly freshwater marshes sink and become brackish or saltwater marshes, said the report.

One marsh in Alaska apparently sank about half a foot starting perhaps 15 years before the devastating 1964 Alaska quake, which measured 9.2 on the Richter scale and generated a tsunami that killed a number of people along the Pacific coast. Similarly, a core from a marsh in Oregon showed evidence of four large earthquakes over the past 3000 years, each preceded by subsidence.

Seismologists estimate that the period between megathrust quakes along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where the Pacific, Juan de Fuca and Gorda Oceanic plates creep under the North American plate, ranges from hundreds to thousands of years. This makes them hard to plan for, said Dr Scott. ‘Precursory subsidence detected by tiltmeters would at least allow people along the coast to plan for a major quake and probable tsunami.’

[SOURCE THE MARINE SCIENTIST]