Sonar Electronics Replacement for Vessels Corwith Cramer and Robert Seamans

Sea Education Association, Falmouth MA

Investigators

Abstract

The Sea Education Association (SEA) requests funds to replace Chirp sonar topside electronics on two vessels, the Corwith Cramer (operating in the Atlantic Ocean) and Robert C. Seamans (operating in the Pacific Ocean). The equipment requested will be used by marine science students and scientists from colleges and research institutions throughout the country. The bathymetric and sub-bottom data generated, which includes areas of the ocean not frequented by UNOLS vessels, will be freely shared with the entire oceanographic community via submission to the NSF Research Vessel data archive, Rolling Deck to Repository (SEA has already begun to submit past data to R2R). SEA is a member of UNOLS although the vessels are not part of the Academic fleet. SEA represents an important part of the Educational Infrastructure and funds are routinely awarded from NSF through both the Technical Services and Oceanographic Instrumentation Programs. This proposal did not arrive in time for the panel. It was independently reviewed by email. Only one item was presented for review: 1) 2 ea Knudsen 3260 Echo Sounders Broader Impacts: The acquisition, maintenance and operation of shared-use instrumentation allows NSF-funded researchers from any US university or lab access to working, calibrated instruments for their research, reducing the cost of that research, and expanding the base of potential researchers.