Fladen Ground is an area in the Scottish sector of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

, between Scotland and Norway, about northeast of

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), ...

. The

Fair Isle Fair Isle (; sco, Fair Isle; non, Friðarey; gd, Fara) is an island in Shetland, in northern Scotland. It lies about halfway between mainland Shetland and Orkney. It is known for its bird observatory and a traditional style of knitting. Th ...

current and adjacent East

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the ...

Atlantic tides contribute to a weak,

anti-clockwise Two-dimensional rotation can occur in two possible directions. Clockwise motion (abbreviated CW) proceeds in the same direction as a clock's hands: from the top to the right, then down and then to the left, and back up to the top. The opposite s ...

rotating vast vortex or eddy easily shown in the surface of the seabed.Athena Field Development, p 61 Due to stratification of the water column in the summer months, seasonal change of deep water temperature is low. This measures (). Water depths are predominantly between , and the mostly muddy sea floor has accumulated sediments from some storm-driven scouring action to surrounds.Athena Field Development, p 60 The dominant benthic animals are

polychaete Polychaeta () is a paraphyletic class of generally marine annelid worms, commonly called bristle worms or polychaetes (). Each body segment has a pair of fleshy protrusions called parapodia that bear many bristles, called chaetae, which are ...

s and

shellfish Shellfish is a colloquial and fisheries term for exoskeleton-bearing aquatic invertebrates used as food, including various species of molluscs, crustaceans, and echinoderms. Although most kinds of shellfish are harvested from saltwater env ...

and other

seafood Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans, prominently including fish and shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs (e.g. bivalve molluscs such as clams, oysters and mussels, and cephalopods such as octopus a ...

s are common. The name is not used by the British shipping (weather) forecast sectors, which extend the

Long Forties 200px, right Long Forties is a zone of the northern North Sea that is fairly consistently deep. Extent Long Forties are between the northeast coasts of Scotland and the southwest coast of Norway, centred about 57°N 0°30′E; compare to th ...

depth zone eastward as Forties (see Long Forties) for simplicity. Fladen Ground is rich in

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturate ...

and

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon ...

and offers good

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques ...

.Athena Field Development, p 7Athena Field Development, p 68 Scottish vessels catch low-fat fish species, and

Norway lobster ''Nephrops norvegicus'', known variously as the Norway lobster, Dublin Bay prawn, ' (compare langostino) or ''scampi'', is a slim, orange-pink lobster which grows up to long, and is "the most important commercial crustacean in Europe". It is n ...

. Danish and English vessels catch

Northern prawn ''Pandalus borealis'' is a species of caridean shrimp found in cold parts of the northern Atlantic and northern Pacific Oceans, although the latter population now often is regarded as a separate species, ''P. eous''. The Food and Agriculture Orga ...

.Athena Field Development, p 84

Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area

Since 2014, of the Fladen Ground has been a Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area under the title Central Fladen MPA(NC).

Notes

References

* North Sea Nature Conservation Marine Protected Areas of Scotland {{marine-geo-stub

Nature Conservation Marine Protected Area

See also

Notes

References