101. Figure 3.3 below presents a PCA ordination plot for percentage fractional sediment data used to identify the sediment fractions driving the variability of the sediment composition amongst the sites. The principal component axis (PC1) is very strongly positively correlated with percentage medium sand (500 µm) and accounts for 53.5% of the variation. The second principal component axis (PC2) is strongly correlated with the percentage of fine sand (250 µm) and accounts for a further 34.2% of the variation. The 2 dimensional PCA can be considered a good description of the higher multi dimensional space with PC1 and PC2 together accounting for 87.7% of the variability. The importance of the percentage medium sand and the percentage fine sand fractions in structuring the multivariate patterns seen are visible from the bubble plots in Figure 3.2.
Benthic Characterisation Report November 2013
East Anglia THREE and FOUR Offshore Cable Corridor
