Preliminary Data Synthesis in Support of an Acoustic Natural Laboratory on the East Pacific Rise.

摘要

In this study we performed a synthesis of the seafloor data on hand for the East Pacific Rise as a preliminary analysis of the resolution of the seafloor mapping systems used in oceanography, particularly with respect to bottom slopes and scales of detectable features. Geologists generally consider the terrain of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge as 'rough' while that of the fast-spreading East Pacific Rise is considered smooth. This conception may be misleading in terms of the steepest slopes and the small scale features which govern low frequency backscatter. Initial calculations of the roughness of relief, as computed by the amount of vertical relief per km of seafloor measured by Deep Tow, show that the fastest spreading EPR is almost as rough as the slowest spreading MAR, and that both are much rougher than profiles from intermediate rates. This report includes a paper on three-dimensional bathymetric imaging.