Ron Brown is equipped with a SEABEAM 2112 12KHz swath bathymetric sonar system capable of hydrographic charting and seafloor acoustic backscatter imaging in water depths ranging from 10 to 11,000 meters, with up to 151 beams. Swath coverage varies as a function of depth from 150 degrees at 1,000 meters, to 120 degrees at 5,000 meters and 90 degrees at 11,000 meters. This system was originally used for high accuracy (Seabeam Classic) charting of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Todays multi beam system is designed for shallow or deep water bathymetric surveying. The system regularly operates in 4000 + meters of water but is effective in shallower applications (< 500m). The swath of coverage on the ocean floor is approximately 75% of the water depth.
The SEABEAM 2112 system is operated using HydroStar x86 software on UK Fat PC workstation P42's 2 ghz / 1 gig memory . Real time trackline monitoring is displayed on the SG O2's computers. Real time Contour plots are created and Displayed on the SG O2's workstations, incorporating the SeaView plotting package; Sealogger, Seasurvey_adv. (mb44 format data logging) Postprocessing produces contour plots and smoothed plots of the area charted.
