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Chris Jenkins Presents New SEABED Technology
Christopher Jenkins, of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at University of Colorado, Boulder, and Jane Reid (USGS, Santa Cruz) visited the Woods Hole Field Center (WHFC) on February 12 and 13 to talk with marine geologists from across the Coastal and Marine Geology Program (CMGP). The group evaluated the immediate use of usSEABED—a database of diverse types of sea-floor data—in the National Offshore Sand and Gravel Resource Assessment project, led by Frank Manheim (Reston) and Jeff Williams (Woods Hole). They also explored opportunities for using the system as a national GIS (Geographic Information Systems) database. The Sand and Gravel project is a new, national topical assessment in partnership with the Minerals Management Service (MMS), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and several coastal States. The assessment is responding to increasing demand for accessible geologic information on aggregate resources for beach replenishment and coastal restoration, as well as data needs for environmental research, marine-habitat research, and other purposes. In addition to the creation of a national marine sediment database, three pilot studies are underway in New York Bight, Louisiana, and Hawaii. Currently Jane Reid, Mike Field (Santa Cruz), Jim Gardner (Menlo Park), and Chris Jenkins are collaborating to use usSEABED to map surficial seabed sediment along the west coast for correlation with benthic habitats. This system provides a means for compiling, visualizing, and analyzing sediment data. Chris also visited WHFC in January, while he was still affiliated with the University of Sydney, Australia. He gave a seminar to the Woods Hole science community entitled "New Information Processing Techniques Leading to Marine Substrate Maps on Local and National Scales," in which he demonstrated the GIS information-processing system that he created called dbSEABED. The U.S. version is called usSEABED. The SEABED system provides a new kind of marine information structure, based on information processing that includes data mining and fuzzy-logic processing of text descriptions with complete temporal and geospatial discrimination of data. SEABED enables seabed data to be processed into information that assists scientific research, engineering, environmental management, fisheries, marine prospecting, search-and-rescue operations, coastal-change awareness, and defense. The system can accept a wide variety of data types, and the outputs can be used in virtually any program, such as GIS applications, spreadsheets, and relational databases.
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in this issue:
Radio Interview Explores African Dust Florida Coastal Storm Defenses Environmental Academy Web Site Congressional Briefing—Sea Otter Research SEABED Technology John Hughes Clarke—"Imaging Water Mass Variability" |
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
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