Morphology and multifractal features of a guyot in specific topographic vicinity in the Caroline Ridge,West Pacific

Massive seamounts have been surveyed and documented in the last decades.However,the morphologies of seamounts are usually described in qualitative manners,yet few quantitative detections have been carried out.Here,based on the high-re solution multi-beam bathymetric data,we report a recentlysurveyed guy ot on the Caroline Ridge in the West Pacific,and the large-scale volcanic structures and smallscale erosive-depositional landforms in the guyot area have been identified.The multifractal features of the guyot are characterized for the first time by applying multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis on the surveyed bathymetric data.The results indicate that the multifractal spectrum parameters of the seafloor have strong spatial dependency on the fluctuations of local landforms.Both small-and large-scale components contribute to the degree of asymmetry of the multifractal spectrum(B),while the fluctuations of B are mostly attributed to the changes in small-scale roughness.The maximum singularity strength(α0)correlates well with the roughness of large-scale landforms and likely reflects the large-scale topographic irregularity.Comparing to traditional roughness parameters or monofractal exponents,multifractal spectra are able to depict not only the multiscale characteristics of submarine landforms,but also the spatial variations of scaling behaviors.Although more comparative works are required for various seamounts,we hope this study,as a case of quantifying geomorphological characters and multiscale behaviors of seamounts,can encourage further studies on seamounts concerning geomorphological processes,ocean bottom circulations,and seamount ecosystems.

Automatic segmentation of gas plumes from multibeam water column images using a U-shape network

Cold seeps are widely developed on the seabed of continental margins and can form gas plumes due to the upward migration of methane-rich fluids.The detection and automatic segmentation of gas plumes are of great significance in locating and studying the cold seep system that is usually accompanied by hydrate layers in the subsurface.A multibeam echo-sounder system(MBES)can record the complete backscatter intensity of the water column,and it is one of the most effective means for detecting cold seeps.However,the gas plumes recorded in multibeam water column images(WCI)are usually blurred due to the interference of the complicated water environment and the sidelobes of the MBES,making it difficult to obtain the effective segmentation.Therefore,based on the existing UNet semantic segmentation network,this paper proposes an AP-UNet network combining the convolutional block attention module and the pyramid pooling module for the automatic segmentation and extraction of gas plumes.Comparative experiments are conducted among three traditional segmentation methods and two deep learning methods.The results show that the AP-UNet segmentation model can effectively suppress complicated water column noise interference.The segmentation precision,the Dice coefficient,and the recall rate of this model are 92.09%,92.00%,and 92.49%,respectively,which are 1.17%,2.10%,and 2.07%higher than the results of the UNet.

Automatic calibration for wobble errors in shallow water multibeam bathymetries

The wobble errors caused by the imperfect integration of motion sensors and transducers in multibeam echo-sounder systems(MBES)manifest as high-frequency wobbles in swaths and hinder the accurate expression of high-resolution seabed micro-topography under a dynamic marine environment.There are many types of wobble errors with certain coupling among them.However,those current calibration methods ignore the coupling and are mainly manual adjustments.Therefore,we proposed an automatic calibration method with the coupling.First,given the independence of the transmitter and the receiver,the traditional georeferenced model is modified to improve the accuracy of footprint reduction.Secondly,based on the improved georeferenced model,the calibration model associated with motion scale,time delay,yaw misalignment,lever arm errors,and soundings is constructed.Finally,the genetic algorithm(GA)is used to search dynamically for the optimal estimation of the corresponding error parameters to realize the automatic calibration of wobble errors.The simulated data show that the accuracy of the calibrated data can be controlled within 0.2%of the water depth.The measured data show that after calibration,the maximum standard deviation of the depth is reduced by about 5.9%,and the mean standard deviation of the depth is reduced by about 11.2%.The proposed method has significance in the precise calibration of dynamic errors in shallow water multibeam bathymetrie s.

Physical characteristics of high concentrated gas hydrate reservoir in the Shenhu production test area,South China Sea

High concentrated and heterogeneous distribution of gas hydrates have been identified in the gas hydrate production test region in the Shenhu area,South China Sea.The gas hydrate-bearing sediments with high saturation locate at two ridges of submarine canyon with different thickness and saturations just above the bottom simulating reflection.The crossplots of gamma ray,acoustic impedance(P-impedance)and porosity at four sites show that the sediments can be divided into the upper and lower layers at different depths,indicating different geotechnical reservoir properties.Therefore,the depositional environments and physical properties at two ridges are analyzed and compared to show the different characteristics of hydrate reservoir.High porosity,high P-wave velocity,and coarse grain size indicate better reservoir quality and higher energy depositional environment for gas hydrate at Sites W18 and W19 than those at Sites W11 and W17.Our interpretation is that the base of canyon deposits at Sites W18 and W19 characterized by upward-coarsening units may be turbidity sand layers,thus significantly improving the reservoir quality with increasing gas hydrate saturation.The shelf and slope sliding deposits compose of the fine-grained sediments at Sites W11 and W17.The gas hydrate production test sites were conducted at the ridge of W11 and W17,mainly because of the thicker and larger area of gas hydrate-bearing reservoirs than those at Sites W18 and W19.All the results provide useful insights for assessing reservoir quality in the Shenhu area.

High-resolution topography measurement of PACMANUS and DESMOS hydrothermal fields using a ROV in Manus basin

In China,the lack of high-resolution topographical data from small target areas limits our understanding of deep sea phenomena.Here,the high-resolution topography of the PACMANUS hydrothermal field and the DESMOS hydrothermal field were measured using a remotely operated underwater vehicle(ROV)with a multibeam system.A composition positioning system on the ROV provided high positioning accuracy(greater than 0.5 m).The data show that four knolls develop in the PACMANUS field on the crest of the Pual ridge.The