The “BIOZAÏRE”
Program: A Multidisciplinary Environmental Study on the Equatorial African
Margin—Application to
Miné, Jacques1, Myriam Sibuet2, Lenaïck Menot3, Josiane Durrieu4 (1) Total E&P, Paris la Défense Cédex, France (2) IFREMER, Plouzané, France (3) University of Occidental Brittany, Plouzané, France (4) Total E&P -HSE Division-Environment Operations Department, Pau, France
The ecological characteristic of the Equatorial African margin (benthic
communities
related to chemosynthetic processes.
These characteristics lead to develop the “BIOZAÏRE” research
program, performed in a technical partnership between the French Oceanographic
Centre (IFREMER) and TOTAL, in order to increase the reliability of the
environmental studies performed in connection with the deep-sea oil fields
developments in
The paper will present the program itself and its results with
emphasis on:
.
•
The elaboration of a reliable and reproducible methodology of sampling adapted
to thesize, the abundance and the natural variability
of the fauna.
.
•
The understanding of the structure and functioning of benthic
communities to betteridentify a possible impact of the oil E&P
activity and to measure the ability of the environment to return to the
equilibrium after perturbation.