Correlation between Co-Registered SeaMARC II, Seabeam and SeaMARC I sonar Data of the Same Seafloor on the Crest and Flanks of the East Pacific Rise; Quantitative Comparisons of System Resolution of Imaging of Seafloor Microtopography

Abstract : The objectives are to quantify the differences in the way several high-resolution swath mapping systems resolve the detailed morphology of seafloor terrain and evaluate numerical models that predict seafloor roughness by using actual data of several types in areas where models have been developed. The research objectives for this small study were to compare and analyze coregistered SeaMARC and Seabeam bathymetric datasets over an area of the East Pacific Rise between 13 - 15 deg N, where a large NSF-funded Sea MARC II survey had been carried out in 1987.