Between January 23rd and 24th 2024, a two-day workshop on ‘Seafloor Characterisation for Offshore Infrastructure and Marine Planning’ took place at the Multipurpose Social Welfare and Employment Space of the Municipality of Larnaka, Cyprus. The workshop was organised by the Southampton Marine & Maritime Institute (SMMI) and hosted by the Cyprus Marine and Maritime Institute (CMMI).

This workshop was designed to provide a broad introduction to the technologies and best practices in seafloor characterisation for applications such as offshore cables and pipelines, offshore and coastal structures including oil, gas, and renewable energy facilities. The participants had also the opportunity to get involved in GIS-based computer exercises and earn knowledge about geology and geophysics. The instructors of this workshop were Justin Dix (Course Lead: Professor of Marine Geology & Geophysics), Tim Henstock (Professor of Geophysics), and Dave White (Professor of Infrastructure Geotechnics) from the University of Southampton, UK.

Three Honor Frost Foundation scholars from Egypt and Lebanon (Elissa Nader, Maii Ghanem, and Sirin Ghiye) joined the workshop, as part of the broader Cyprus Regional Development Project (CRDP) funded by the Honor Frost Foundation (HFF). This project aims to acquire a greater understanding of the maritime cultural resource of the island of Cyprus, develop an integrated approach to documenting archaeology in selected coastal regions, and more broadly share expertise and build capacity in the HFF eastern Mediterranean region.