Using Sonar To Map The Ocean Floor

Mapping techniques have improved over time but only the use of sound sonar has permitted large scale high resolution seafloor measurements.

Using sonar to map the ocean floor.

Sonar short for sound navigation and ranging is helpful for exploring and mapping the ocean because sound waves travel farther in the water than do radar and light waves. First the raw sensor data is corrected by means of a physics based sss model. This is achieved by explicitly taking into account the sss operation as follows. By the 1920s the coast and geodetic survey an ancestor of the national oceanic and atmospheric administration s national ocean service was using sonar to map deep water.

Mapping the ocean floor with echo sounding echo sounding is the key method scientists use to map the seafloor today. There are three tools used to map the ocean floor sonar satellites and submersibles. Tools used to map the ocean floor today s technology lets scientists to study the ocean in a quicker and precise way. The goal of this study is to generate high resolution sea floor maps using a side scan sonar sss.

Despite this long history of mapping the seafloor only about 10 to 15 of the ocean has yet been mapped in high resolution. Second the data is projected to the sea floor. Noaa scientists primarily use sonar to develop nautical charts locate underwater hazards to navigation search for and map objects on the sea floor such as shipwrecks and map the sea floor itself. Sonar is a type of electronic depth sounding equiptment made in the 1920 s it is an acronym for sound navigation and ranging.