plover steaming
GGE 5083 - Hydrographic Field Operations
2002 St. Andrew Harbour, NB
Instructor : John E. Hughes Clarke
Winter Term (January - April 2002) and first 3 weeks of May
Tuesdays 1830-2130 and Fridays  1200-1300

This class provides an opportunity to plan and execute a coastal marine acoustic survey. It is designed to introduce both undergraduate and graduate students to the
practical issues involved in a coastal survey. These surveys are chosen based on ongoing cooperative research programs and thus survey location, instrumentation and aims vary from year to year. Whilst in the past this project was primarily of a nautical charting focus, increasingly the surveys are conducted for oceanographic, environmental, geologic or coastal engineering purposes.


LEARNING OBJECTIVES
(1) To further inflame that burning desire to map the oceans
….achieving this through ….

the planning, execution and processing of a coastal marine acoustic survey.

at the conclusion of this course the students should:

CREDITS AND PREREQUISITES

As this is a 5000 level  course, it is offered both to graduate and undergraduate students. 3 credits are earned towards undergraduate degrees, 2 credits for
graduate. In addition graduate students are require to provide a parallel research paper that examines one of the technical aspects of the field program. For those
interested in the IHO Cat. A academic certificate, this course provides the required minimum field operations experience.

Prerequisites for this course include:



TIMETABLE 2002
 
During the Spring Term from January to April, the following meetings will take place:

The field component of the Hydrocamp 2002 will extend from April 28th to May 18th   For the first two weeks we will be based at the Huntsman Marine Science Centre in St. Andrews during the field acquisition stage (the CSL Heron will be based at the SABS, Brandy Cove DFO wharf). For the third week, we will move back to UNBF to complete the data processing and presentation component.


COURSE SEQUENCE

Duuring the term, two Coastguard-approved training programs (given by the Fredericton Chapter of the Canadian Power and Sail Squadron) will be covered. These will be taught on Tuesday evenings for 3 hours by Rik Hall, David Estey and David Nickerson. The courses covered will include:
In addition to these courses, active preparations will be undertaken to ensure that we are ready for the field component. This will include:
We will meet once a week on Friday at 1200 to monitor progress of all of this.

FIELD OPERATIONS

The field operation segment is the prime component of GGE5083. It serves three purposes:

Putting on a field component is a significant logistical exercise. The original intent of the IHO curriculum was directed toward government survey organisations (predominantly military) that already routinely operate large survey vessels and employ and train survey staff/officers who are either, already watch-keeping bridge officers or experienced field survey staff.  The Academic certificate was in-part introduced to allow academic organisations, which can offer all of the theoretical components of the curriculum, but lack the extensive platform and technical support, to offer this training.

heron and plover

In previous years,  the Hydro. Camp had relied upon the University research vessel, the Mary-O, a 43 foot general purpose coastal platform. In addition for more specialised gear, we were occasionally able to borrow the CHS survey launch Plover with its dedicated Simrad EM3000S. 
In 2002 we hope to mobilise for the first time CSL Heron. The Heron is a 34 ft dedicated hydrographic survey launch that was originally designed for use on the CSS Baffin. As part of a 10 year Joint Partnering Arrangement, the Heron will be loaned to the Ocean Mapping Group at UNB. We are currently installing our own SimradEM3000S (purchased with the assistance of CFI, Kongsberg Simrad and ACOA) together with keel mounted 200 kHz Knudsen sidescan staves and subbottom profiling (28 and 3.5 kHz)  transducers and an RDI ADCP.

        There has been a long history of SE5083.

For the 2002 field program, the location chosen is the harbour and approaches to St. Andrews-by-the-Sea in New Brunswick.
 

The St. Andrews-by-the-sea haTop">The St. Andrews-by-the-sea harbour and approaches was chosen  for it's:
  • proximity to the St. Andrew Biological Station Wharf in Brandy Cove
  • proximity to the Huntsman Marine Science Centre for Accomodation .
  • The existance of archived single and multibeam data in the area..
  • An area of high yachting activity with moorings and a dock for precise survey. 
  • The data will form an useful addition toward an ongoing research project looking at the development of the giant pockmark fields in Passamaquoddy Bay.

St. Andrews Region


The aim is combine the terrestrial data collected by  SNB, with new bathymetric, backscatter and subsurface data collected from the CSL Heron multibeam,  sidescan and subbottom systems. The aims of the survey are threefold:
 

  1. to build a new, more accurate topographic model of St. Andrews Harbour.
  2. to map out the distribution of surficial and shallow subsurface sediments in the harbour and approaches
  3. to define the tidal circulation patterns within the harbour and approaches.s within the harbour and approaches.


    More details on proposed 2002 St. Andrews Project :

    Details on Previous Year SE4083 Surveys.


COURSE ASSESSMENT

The course assessment will be based :
 


last modified  8th January 2002 by John E. Hughes Clarke .