Summary

Description

This image represents a 5 meter resolution backscatter mosaic of the south shore of St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands. NOAA's NOS/NCCOS/CCMA Biogeography Team and NOAA/NOS/OCS/HSD personnel, in collaboration with NOAA vessel Nancy Foster and territory, federal, and private sector partners, acquired multibeam bathymetry data in the US Virgin Islands from 2/18/04 to 3/5/04. Data was acquired with a pole-mounted Reson 8101 ER multibeam echosounder (240 kHz) and processed by a NOAA contractor using CARIS HIPS v5.4 software. Data has all correctors applied (attitude, sound velocity) and has been reduced to mean lower low water (MLLW) using final approved tides from NOAA COOPS. Data is in UTM zone 20 north, datum WGS84. Within CARIS, each line of backscatter data was evaluated for bottom tracking and was slant-range corrected. Data was not corrected for gain or transmit power artifacts. Backscatter mosaics were then created using the CARIS shine-through option. Finally, a georeferenced imagery file was exported from the mosaic. While the project was conducted to meet IHO Order 2 accuracy standards, there is a roll artifact (averaging 0.5m high) in the dataset that the user should take into consideration when performing any analysis.