Title : Integrating marine geology and oceanographic data to support renewable blue energy resources
Abstract:
An archipelagic nation like Indonesia has significant potential for renewable blue energy, but site selection and risk assessment are constrained by seafloor conditions and its characteristics.
From a water column mass perspective, Indonesian waters and deep inter-island passages host strong currents, monsoon-driven mixing, and thick, sediment deposits packages. From a geoscience perspective, Indonesia's unique geotectonic setting, which lies at the confluence of three major plates, not only generates high seismicity and extensive submarine volcanism, but also highly irregular and steep seafloor morphology. Together, these oceanographic and tectonic controls pose unique engineering and risk mitigation challenges for the planning, design, and operation of blue energy systems.
The contributions of these two types of information are applied in a case study. For the particularly site, we combine marine geological data such as single-channel seismic profiles, vibrocore data, and grain-size analysis to reconstruct the stratigraphic architecture, sediment thickness, and seafloor roughness. The results illustrate complex seafloor morphological units, mud-rich zones, and sediment physical properties that influence foundation conditions, bearing capacity, and scour or liquefaction risk for prospective tidal and current installations. These geological constraints are cross-referenced with meta-ocean statistics and extreme events from previous studies of monsoon-driven waves and coastal hazards in Indonesian waters for sediment focusing and seafloor instability.
By combining these geological and oceanographic layers into a GIS-based multi-criteria framework, preliminary opportunity and exclusion zones for blue energy development in the site can be defined. This approach demonstrates how jointly designed marine geology and physical oceanography can mitigate geotechnical and environmental efficiencies and offers a transferable template for creating climate-resilient blue energy corridors in complex tectono-oceanographic settings.
Keywords: geological oceanographic data, geotectonics, seafloor morphology, and renewable energy
