NOAA COAST SURVEY CONTINUES SEA FLOOR MAPPING EXPEDITION IN THE ARCTIC

August 13, 2007 — NOAA’s Office of Coast Survey, in partnership with the University of New Hampshire’s Joint Hydrographic Center and the National Science Foundation, will embark on a four-week cruise to map a portion of the Arctic sea floor starting Aug. 17.

This is the third expedition in a series of cruises aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter HEALY designed to map the sea floor on the northern Chukchi Cap. Scientists will explore this poorly known region to better understand its morphology and the potential for including this area within the United States’ extended continental shelf under the United Nations Convention on Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). (NOAA image of Ship using multibeam sonar.)

The data collected during this cruise will also provide valuable information for better understanding sea floor processes and fisheries habitat, as well as provide input into climate and circulation models that will help scientists predict future conditions in the Arctic.

Previous mapping cruises in this series were conducted in 2003 and 2004.

The HEALY is equipped with more than 4,200 square feet of scientific laboratory space and a multibeam echo sounder, the primary tool that is used to map the sea floor. The research has been funded through a NOAA grant award to the University of New Hampshire and will be headed by cruise chief scientist Larry Mayer at UNH with NOAA's Andy Armstrong serving as co-chief scientist. (Click NOAA image for larger view of multibeam image of the HEALY seamount, a seamount discovered in 2003 on the first of the Arctic HEALY crusies. Please credit “NOAA.”)

The northern Chukchi Cap is an ice-covered region of the Arctic Ocean where little data about the sea floor is available. The cruise will primarily be mapping the 2,500 meter (about 8,250 foot) depth contour and the foot of the continental slope — the area where the continental margin transitions into the deep sea floor.

The Administration is currently seeking Senate consent to U.S. accession to the Law of the Sea Convention as a priority recommendation under the President's Ocean Action Plan. Accession would allow full implement of the rights afforded to convention parties to protect coastal and ocean resources.

Coastal states have sovereign rights over resources of the sea floor and subsurface of their continental shelves. Under the Law of the Sea, a country gets 200 nautical miles of continental shelf automatically, but may extend its shelf beyond 200 nautical miles if it meets certain geologic criteria. Under the Law of the Sea Convention, nations submit scientific data on their continental shelves to a technical body called the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. If a country's claim meets Commission criteria, it strengthens the legal certainty underlying the country's assertion of entitlement to the extended shelf. (The United States is seeking to become a party to the Convention in part to benefit from the legal certainty that comes with this mechanism.) (Using a multibeam echo sounder, NOAA scientist can map and produce a visualization from the data collected of the bottom of the ocean. Click NOAA image for a larger view of multibeam data showing Barrow and how the Chukchi extends from Alaska. Please credit “NOAA.”)

Additional research, coordinated through the National Science Foundation, includes the deployment of several Metocean ice-beacons/buoys for the National Ice Center to collect information on long-term ice drift, as well as the recovery, refurbishment and redeployment of two high-frequency acoustic recording packages used to record background acoustic noise. Scientist on the ship will conduct sea ice analysis and routine collection of observations of sea ice characteristics.

The partnership between NOAA’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping and the Joint Hydrographic Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, N.H., is intended to create a national center for expertise in ocean mapping and hydrographic sciences. The centers focus their activities on two major tasks. The first is an educational task to create a learning center that promotes and fosters the education of a new generation of hydrographers and ocean mapping scientists. The second is a research task that develops and evaluates a wide range of state-of-the-art hydrographic and ocean mapping technologies and applications.

NOAA, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. (Click NOAA image for larger view of Arctic seamount. Click here for high resolution version, which is a large file. Please credit “NOAA.”)

NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 70 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects.

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA

NOAA National Ocean Service

NOAA Office of Coast Survey

University of New Hampshire Joint Hydrographic Center