AUV Imagery from Gippsland Basin (GA353 - 'Short-term after' survey)

Brief description

This dataset is part of the Gippsland Marine Environmental Monitoring (GMEM) project. The GMEM was developed in response to stakeholder concerns from the fisheries industry about a Geoscience Australia seismic survey in the Gippsland Basin (GA352 in April 2015), in addition to a broader need to acquire baseline data to be used to quantify impacts of seismic operations on marine organisms. A component of this study was to acquire images of the seafloor before and after the seismic survey for analysis of potential impacts of seismic operations on scallops. This dataset contains information collected from the AUV-Phoenix on survey GA-353 conducted 19-25 June 2015. The Phoenix is an Iver AUV operated by Australian Marine Ecology Pty Ltd and the University of Sydney (Australian Centre for Field Robotics). It includes a stereo camera system (i.e. two cameras), a USBL, and a sidescan sonar. Stereo image pairs were collected at a rate of 2 Hz with a target altitude of 2 m above the seabed and speed of 1 m s-1 (2 knots) using high sensitivity CCD cameras (Allied Vision Manta G-145C, resolution of 1388 x 1038 pixels). Illumination was by two strobes mounted in the fore and aft-sections of the vehicle and synchronised with the cameras. The camera lens and stereo orientation properties were calibrated in a pool immediately prior to the survey. The Phoenix returned usable still images at 12 sites, but strong currents resulted in truncated transects due to difficulty diving on Stations 14, 37, and 47, and strobe failure on Stations 40 and 47 resulted in reduced image quality. For each station, this dataset contains post-processed geotiffs acquired from a single AUV camera, track files, and a compressed mosaic of combined images. A Word file provides additional data about the folder structure, file types, and post-processing.

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