Publication Date:
2024-04-20
Description:
During the RV MARIA S. MERIAN cruise to the Svalbard Archipelago and the Fram Strait during September - October 2020 the Ocean Floor Observation and Bathymetry System (OFOBS) was used to collect still and video images, as well as sidescan data, from various locations surveyed during the research cruise.
The OFOBS system consisted of a towed underwater camera system equipped with both a high-resolution photo-camera (iSiTEC, CANON EOS 5D Mark III) and a high-definition video-camera (iSiTEC, Sony FCB-H11) as well as an integrated sidescan sonar system. The cameras were mounted on a steel frame (140L x 92W x 135H cm), together with two strobe lights (iSiTEC UW-Blitz 250, TTL driven), three laser pointers spaced with a distance of 50 cm used to estimate the size of seafloor structures, four LED lights, and a USBL positioning system (Posidonia) to track the position of the OFOBS during deployments, with additional positioning information provided by the integrated INS and DVL systems.
In automatic mode, a seabed photo, depicting an area of approximately 4 m², with variations depending on the actual height above ground, was taken every ~15 seconds to obtain series of "TIMER" stills distributed at regular distances along each of the survey profiles. Profile lengths varied in length depending on duration of the cast, usually determined by sea state conditions at time of survey. At a ship speed of 0.5 kn, the average distance between seabed images was approximately 5 m. Ship speed was however greatly influenced by ice conditions. Additional "HOTKEY" photos were taken from interesting objects (organisms, seabed features, etc) when they appeared in the live video feed.
Keywords:
deep sea ecology; fishing; FRAM; Fram Strait; FRontiers in Arctic marine Monitoring; Hausgarten; Long-term Investigation at AWI-Hausgarten off Svalbard; Svalbard; trawling
Type:
Dataset
Format:
application/zip, 15 datasets
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