A sliding foundation comprising a mudmat 30 positioned over a mass of rocks 24 on the seabed 10. Construction comprises embedding at least one mass of rocks in seabed soil and placing a sliding mudmat over the or each mass of rocks. The rocks may be lowered or dumped into a cavity (14, fig. 1b) in the seabed. Alternatively, a gabion (34, fig. 4) can penetrate the seabed soil, driven by self-weight or additionally by a deadweight (38, fig. 5a) bearing on the gabion. The gabion is lowered toward the seabed suspended from the deadweight, with the deadweight being removed and recovered after the gabion has been embedded. Two discrete columns of rocks can be embedded in the seabed at mutually spaced locations with the mud mad placed to span the columns. The mudmat has an excursion zone (32, fig. 2) and rocks are embedded such that the mudmat will lie directly above at least part of a rock mass.
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