Kaan Cav and Andrew Niedbala are currently aboard USCGC Healy as part of the scientific party to support mapping efforts of the United States exclusive economic zone north of Alaska and to support the Arctic Port Access Route Study (PARS) which helps inform policy makers and regulators regarding vessel traffic in the Arctic.
 

Andrew and Kaan are both UNH graduate students studying at the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. Kaan is an outdoor enthusiast who has a background in physics. He particularly appreciates the convergence of physical science and nature that comes with ocean mapping. Andrew is a lieutenant in the US Coast Guard and was particularly excited for the unique opportunity to map aboard the Healy as both a mapper and Coast Guard member.
 

The science party includes a NOAA mapping team, STARC (Ship-based Technical Support in the Arctic), a Community Observer, and the two hydrographers from UNH among others.

Learn more about Healy's 2024 Arctic Deployment >>

October 10-16, 2024
 

We boarded Healy in Nome, Alaska and began to head north! Onboard, the first item on the entire science party’s agenda was a shipboard orientation, safety training, and an abandon ship drill. After this and getting settled into our rooms, the science team got to work to get all the equipment ready. The ship has an installed deepwater mapping system (EM122) and subbottom profiler (Knudsen CHIRP 3260) which the NOAA team quickly got to work preparing for the business of mapping. These are not the only systems however. The STARC team onboard oversees all installed scientific equipment which also includes a vast array of meteorological sensors, oceanographic sensors such as a rosette CTD, an acoustic doppler current profiler, many lab spaces, and the data acquisition pipeline.

Once the mapping systems were up and running, and the ship was steaming north, the data collection began in earnest. Much of the early data collected was in the shallow shelf waters of the Northern Berring Sea and Chukchi Sea. Mapping shallow waters with a deepwater system is not ideal, however the NOAA and UNH team worked together to fine tune the mapping system’s settings for the best data resolution and quality, ensuring quality bathymetry data for Arctic mariners.

After the few days of shallow mapping during the transit north, the Healy finally steamed over the continental slope and we watched the ocean floor slowly drop out from beneath us on the display. It’s an earie sensation to know the ocean is getting deeper even when you look out the window and the ocean looks the same….

October 16, 2024
 

Raw Subbottom Profiler Data from the Arctic Ocean Seafloor.

 
We have been continuing to map the exclusive economic zone of the northeastern most portion of Alaska. In addition to the multibeam echosounder data which takes a swath of soundings for bathymetric coverage, we are also running a subbottom profiler. The purpose of the subbottom profiler is not to gather bathymetry data, but rather to glean information about the upper layers of the Earth’s crust. This is invaluable information to geologists who are interested in the formation and characteristics of the ocean floor. In our case, for researchers studying the abyssal plain of the Arctic Ocean. While geologists are very interested in this data, it can also be used to investigate a nation’s extended continental shelf. For more information please visit CCOM's Law of the Sea page.

Acquiring the first high resolution bottom coverage of the ocean floor can be exciting; you are not sure what you will find! On charts in locations where only a limited amount of modern mapping has taken place, cartographers may be forced to use soundings from very old single beam or even lead line surveys. We can investigate these in advance and hope to predict what we may see. One sounding still on the modern charts we are using is suspiciously shallow, about a third of the depth of the surrounding area. We tracked its origin down to an early 1900’s chart archived in NOAA’s Historical Map and Chart Collection database. This is the earliest record of the sounding, and it was likely taken from an even earlier survey, possibly in the 1800s.
 

Suspect sounding highlighted on historic chart from NOAA OCS's Historical Map and Chart Collection.

 
This sounding in particular must have been a lead line sounding, presumably measured and fixed from surveyors traversing ice (or possibly in open ocean by boat…this would be extremely impressive). While the accuracy of old soundings like these can be impressive, they can also be suspect. Fortunately we are able to place one of our track-lines over this sounding and our multibeam echosounder will be able to tell us the actual shape of the ocean floor here. Could it be a seamount?

October 17-18, 2024

Raw Data Collected in the PARS (approx. 2,200-3,000m depth range).

 
Unfortunately, the suspect sounding proved to be an errant sounding rather than a seamount. However, it is suspected there are more than 100,000 seamounts in the world’s oceans, with fewer than 10% of them being explored. Back in 2012, mappers and scientists from CCOM/JHC aboard this same vessel discovered a previously unknown seamount which was later named the Healy Seamount. You can read more about it in that cruise’s research log at HEALY 1202 Research Cruise | The Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping (unh.edu).

Photo Credit: Lloyd Pikok.

 
We do continue to collect high quality bathymetry within the US’s exclusive economic zone and the PARS. While mapping, water column sound speed measurements are critical to accurate data. Though unable to take full CTD casts, we are able to use expendable bathythermographs (XBT). XBTs only measure temperature, but they are able to taking water column measurements while not interrupting the vessel’s progress. An estimated sound speed profile is then extracted from these measurements for use interpreting the multibeam echosounder’s measurements.

Andrew and a NOAA Hydrographic Survey Technician deploying an XBT.