3rd Offshore Wind Symposium: Geoscience for Offshore Wind

Geoscience remains essential to enabling safe, cost‑effective design, installation and operation of offshore wind foundations and subsea cables. As the industry moves toward larger turbines, deeper waters and more complex sites, the need for integrated geological, geophysical and geotechnical insight continues to grow. The 2026 Symposium expands its scope to cover the full geoscience lifecycle for offshore wind—from regional ground models to near‑surface characterisation, and from nearshore challenges to emerging survey technologies.

We welcome submissions addressing:

• Geoscience for Foundations and Support Structures: Ground models, geohazards, sediment mobility, glacial and shallow gas features, engineering properties and constraints for fixed and floating solutions.

• Geoscience for Cable Routing, Burial and Protection: Very shallow soils (<10 mbsf), morphological and sedimentary processes, UXO/obstacles, burial assessment, installation constraints, landfall engineering and trenching/dredging considerations.

• Nearshore and Landfall Complexity: Dynamic environments, coastal change, sediment transport, constructability, consenting constraints, ground risk, and engineering mitigation strategies.

• Digitalisation and Data Integration: Digital ground models, cloud-native geoscience workflows, machine learning, automation in interpretation, and uncertainty quantification.

• Autonomous and Next-Generation Survey Technologies: AUVs, USVs, remote acquisition, high-resolution sensors, rapid processing pipelines and their implications for project efficiency and model reliability.

We encourage case studies, methodological advancements, and lessons learned from real offshore wind projects. Contributions that highlight integrated or cross‑disciplinary
approaches—geology, geophysics, geotechnics, oceanography, metocean, and engineering—are especially welcome.

This symposium aims to bring together geoscientists, engineers, developers, students, academics and survey practitioners involved in characterising, modelling and interpreting the seafloor and subsurface for offshore wind.

Call for abstracts now open

The call for abstracts for this conference is now open until Monday 29 June 2026. 

For further information, please contact: energygroup@geolsoc.org.uk