GSI will soon be procuring a state-of-the-art ship for its research in the ocean bed. With this ship GSI will be able to go upto 30 metres sediment depth from the 2-metre depth it is cable of doing with the present ship Samudra Ratnakar.
As of now GSI has three ships-two small coastal vessels and the ocean going vessel Samudra Ratnakar, which has about 27 research equipment.
The new ship will be more advanced than Ratnakar. Unlike Samudra Ratnakar which has limited offshore drilling facility the new ship will be able to drill down 60 mt water column and about 30 mt sediment depth, Director General of GSI Mandapalli Raju said here on Saturday.
AN 32 search
On search operation of IAF An-32 plane that had gone missing on July 22 with 28 people on board, including eight NAD employees from Visakhapatnam, he said GSI vessels were involved in the search and had identified 15 potential spots.
