These maps are 3-D computer images that you can actually 'fly' through, as though you were underwater moving across the ocean floor. Two CHS crews, working in six-hour shifts on the launch, are gathering information from the ocean floor. With modern swath-mapping systems, such as multibeam sonar, both measurements can be collected at once so a much larger area of the sea floor can be covered. At the site of the crash of Swissair Flight 111, an area of more than 60 sq. km will be mapped. An acoustic picture of the sea floor is created by measuring the sound energy bounced back from the bottom.
Harder materials send back more energy than softer ones.
Larry Mayer holds UNB's chair in ocean mapping. The chair, which operates within the Ocean Mapping Group, was established in 1991 to expand research capabilities in the development of innovative methods to manage, process, depict and interpret ocean mapping data. John Hughes Clarke is a senior research associate in UNB's Ocean Mapping Group in the department of geodesy and geomatics engineering. He holds a PhD in oceanography. Edouard Kammerer, a UNB graduate student from Paris, France, is working on a PhD under the supervision of Dr. Hughes Clarke.