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Antarctic sea ice is known to provide unique ecosystem habitat at the ice–ocean interface. Mapping sea ice characteristics - such as thickness and roughness - at high resolution from beneath the ice is difficult due to access. A Geoswath Plus phase-measuring bathymetric sonar mounted on an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was employed in this study to collect data underneath the sea ice at Cape Evans in Antarctica in November 2014. This study demonstrates how acoustic data can be collected and processed to resolutions of 1 m for acoustic bathymetry and 5 cm for acoustic backscatter in this challenging environment. Different ice textures such as platelet ice, smooth ice, and sea ice morphologies, ranging in size from 1 to 50 m were characterized. The acoustic techniques developed in this work could provide a key to understanding the distribution of sea ice communities, as they are nondisruptive to the fragile ice environments and provide geolocated data over large spatial extents. These results improve our understanding of sea ice properties and the complex, highly variable ecosystem that exists at this boundary.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	GIS, spatial analysis, Antarctica, sea ice, autonomous underwater vehicles, multibeam acoustic data, underwater acoustic processing methods
Research Division:	Biological Sciences
Research Group:	Ecology
Research Field:	Marine and estuarine ecology (incl. marine ichthyology)
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Terrestrial systems and management
Objective Field:	Assessment and management of terrestrial ecosystems
UTAS Author:	Lucieer, V (Associate Professor Vanessa Lucieer)
UTAS Author:	Nau, AW (Dr Amy Nau)
UTAS Author:	Forrest, AL (Dr Alexander Forrest)
ID Code:	111771
Year Published:	2016
Web of Science® Times Cited:	7
Deposited By:	Ecology and Biodiversity
Deposited On:	2016-10-05
Last Modified:	2018-04-18
Downloads:	258 View Download Statistics