Survey vessel
Encyclopedia
A survey vessel is any type of ship or boat that is used for mapping. It is a type of research vessel
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, full water column, and surface for the purpose of:
Research vessel
A research vessel is a ship designed and equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel, others require a dedicated vessel...
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Role
The task of survey vessels is to map the bottom, benthic zoneBenthic zone
The benthic zone is the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water such as an ocean or a lake, including the sediment surface and some sub-surface layers. Organisms living in this zone are called benthos. They generally live in close relationship with the substrate bottom; many such...
, full water column, and surface for the purpose of:
- hydrographyHydrographyHydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...
- general oceanographyOceanographyOceanography , also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean...
- marine habitats
- salvage
- dredging
Survey equipment
Typically, modern survey vessels are equipped with one or more of the following equipment:- GPS positioning and logging
- single beam sonarScientific echosounderA scientific echosounder is a device which uses SONAR technology for the measurement of underwater physical and biological components—this device is also known as scientific SONAR...
- multibeam sonar
- Side-scan sonarSide-scan sonarSide-scan sonar is a category of sonar system that is used to efficiently create an image of large areas of the sea floor...
- towed magnetometerMagnetometerA magnetometer is a measuring instrument used to measure the strength or direction of a magnetic field either produced in the laboratory or existing in nature...
- subsurface profiler
- grab sampler
- bottom coring device
- DCHP
- CTD
- Inertial Measurement Unit