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Oceanography and Mine Warfare (2000)
Commission on Geosciences, Environment and Resources (CGER)
 Ocean Studies Board (OSB)

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Oceanography and Mine Warfare

Box 3-2 Commander, Mine Warfare Command (COMINEWARCOM)-Acquired Environmental Data

  • AN/SQH-4 Battlespace profiler data - Conductivity, temperature, and depth (CTD) measurements; interfaces with expendable bathythermographs (XBT) and expendable sound velocity (XSV) probes.

  • AN/AQS-14 Acoustic imagery - Helicopter deployed multi-beam mine-hunting sidescan sonar.

  • AN/SQQ-32 Minehunting sonar - Variable depth sonar installed on mine countermeasures (MCM) and minehunter, coastal (MHC) class ships.

  • Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) Diver observations - Qualitative environmental descriptions, including arm thrust measurements of the seafloor, bottom samples, horizontal visibility measurements, and estimates of bottom currents.

Box 3-3 The Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO)-Acquired Environmental Data

  • Acoustic imagery - Processing of AN/AQS-14 imagery.

  • Clutter density - Determined as part of AN/AQS-14 image processing.

  • Currents and provinced currents - Data sources are from moored current meters, acoustic doppler current profilers (ADCP), and diver observations.

  • Soundings and gridded bathymetry - Single-beam data used to generate sounding files or gridded bathymetry.

  • Optics - Measured parameters include optical transmission loss, absorption, and irradiance.

  • Biologics - Bioluminescence, dangerous marine animals, and biofouling.

TABLE 3-1 The Most Common Oceanographic Datasets Used for Nearshore Mine Warfare Operations and Their Importance in the Different Water Depth Zones Defined by the Navy

 

Surf Zone

VSW

SW

Deep Water

SEAFLOOR

 

 

 

 

Bathymetry

H

H

H

M

Sediment grain size

M

H

H

M

Seafloor clutter density

M

H

H

L

Bottom roughness

M

H

H

L

Mine burial

H

H

H

L

WATER COLUMN

 

 

 

 

Currents

L/H*

 

 

 

Water clarity

L

H

H

M

Temperature and salinity

L

M

H

M

Waves

H

H

M

L

Acoustic properties

N/A

H

H

H

* Within the surf zone, information on wind-generated currents is of low priority as these currents are generally overwhelmed by wavegenerated currents.

VSW = Very Shallow Water

SW = Shallow Water

H = High, a parameter that is essential for mine warfare operations in this depth zone;

M = Medium, a parameter that is useful for mine warfare operations in this depth zone;

L = Low, a parameter that is of little use for mine warfare operations in this depth zone;

N/A = A parameter that is not applicable or not measurable in this depth zone.
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