Digital Coast

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Sub-Bottom Profile

NOAA Coastal Services Center

Details

  • Collected by a towfish suspended close to the bottom behind the survey vessel or mounted on a pole fixed to the vessel hull
  • Captures sediment thickness and layering
  • Identifies buried features
  • Requires coring to validate

Notes and Limitations: Sub-bottom data are acquired in transect mode and require a vector track file to be integrated with other spatial data. No sub-bottom information in hard substrate areas, which reflect the incident sonar pulse. The native .seg-y file requires a specialized viewer to examine the files.