The South of Celtic Deep survey was carried out during 12th - 13th February (Part A) and 19th - 20th February 2012(Part B) on the RV CEFAS Endeavour cruise CEND 03/12. The survey team for the duration of the fieldwork included Cefas marine ecologists, marine surveyors, marine habitat mappers and GIS specialists along with MPA specialists from the JNCC. Selection and positioning of groundtruthing stations was informed by acoustic bathymetric and backscatter data collected opportunistically during the survey and the predicted broadscale habitat map from the Site Assessment Document (SAD). Sampling stations within the predicted sedimentary habitats were positioned using a triangular lattice grid overlaid on the habitat map. Stations within the area predicted as subtidal coarse and sand sediments were at a grid spacing of 3.5 km and while stations within the less extensive area predicted as subtidal mixed sediment were at a grid spacing of 2 km.

The survey at South of the Isles of Scilly (SISS1) recommended Marine Conservation Zone (rMCZ) was carried out on board the Research Vessel Cefas Endeavour (Cruise code CEND0613) between the 21st and 23rd May 2013. The survey team for the duration of the fieldwork included marine scientists and surveyors from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) and marine scientists from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC). The main aim of the survey at the SISS rMCZ was to achieve 100% acoustic coverage using the Multi-Beam Echo-Sounder (MBES) and complete a ground truthing survey using both sediment grabs and seabed imagery in order to verify the presence of those BSH encountered.