ME70 Water Column Sonar Data Collected During SH1005

Shimada Seamount Mapping. The ME70 survey was conducted with repeated coverage of the shallow part of the seamount, operating the ME70 in two configurations. One configuration was optimized for water-column and seabed mapping to a range of about 300 m, and the other for seabed mapping to a range of 500 m.

Initially, the ship followed the 500-m contour around the bank to define its spatial extent. Survey waypoints were revised to match the extent, and the ship then followed the parallel survey lines over the top of the bank.

The ME70 and EK60s were operated and recorded to ranges of 1000 m. The operational and recorded range for the initial transit around the seamount o enable seabed detections to 500 m for ME70 beams steered near 45 deg. angles from vertical.

Triggering was synchronous, with the ME70 trigger set as master controlling the EK60 trigger and the delay set to 0-ms.

ME70 was operated at high power. Motion compensation for the ME70 was active with motion data supplied from an Applanix POSMV model MV V4, via serial port. Position data to the ME70 and EK60 were from a MX Marine MX 420 Navigation System GPS with differential correction. Data were recorded in Simrad raw format (.raw files) for the ME70 and EK60.