CRED Optical Validation Data at the island of Guam, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, 2003, to Support Benthic Habitat Mapping

Guam, a U.S. territory located at 13.28 degrees North, 144.45 degrees East, is the southernmost island in the Mariana Archipelago. It is the largest island in Micronesia, with a land mass of 560 square km and a maximum elevation of approximately 405 m. It is also the most heavily populated island in Micronesia, with a population of about 164,000. The northern portion of the island is relatively flat and consists primarily of uplifted limestone. The southern half of the island is primarily volcanic, with more topographic relief and large areas of highly erodible lateritic soils. Those conditions have led to the creation of a number of watersheds throughout the southern areas which are drained by 96 rivers. The island possesses fringing reefs, patch reefs, submerged reefs, offshore banks, and barrier reefs surrounding Cocos Lagoon in the south and part of Apra Harbor. Guam's coral reefs are an important component of the island's tourism industry and make Guam a popular tourist destination for Asian travelers. Traditionally, coral reef fishery resources formed a substantial part of the local Chamorro community's diet and included finfish, invertebrates, and sea turtles. Today coral reef resources are both economically and culturally important, although somewhat displaced from the diet by westernization and declining stocks. Over 10 percent of Guam's coastline has been set aside in five marine preserves, established in 1997 as a response to decreasing reef fish stocks. While management practices are enforced in the marine preserves, there is currently limited management and enforcement in the other areas. The health of Guam's coral reefs varies considerably, depending on a variety of factors including geology, human population density, level of coastal development, level and types of uses of marine resources, oceanic circulation patterns, and frequency of natural disturbances, such as typhoons and earthquakes. Many of Guam's reefs have declined in health over the past 40 years, with the average live coral cover on forereef slopes dwindling from approximately 50 percent in the 1960s to less than 25 percent by the 1990s. Optical validation data were collected using the Tethered Optical Assessment Device (TOAD), a sled equipped with underwater video camera and lights. These data are used to provide ground-truth validation for benthic habitat maps based on multibeam echosounder surveys. Camera sled deployments were conducted at night, usually between 1800 and midnight. The duration of each tow varied but averaged about 40 minutes of bottom time at a given location. The camera sled was deployed from the port J-frame mounted amidships on the NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette. At each station the ship was positioned with the wind on the port side and drifted downwind; occasional light turns were applied to the ship's screws if necessary to reduce the ship's motion. The TOAD was lowered slowly to the bottom by the deck crew using a capstan. The operator monitored a live video feed from the camera and began recording data on a video tape recorder. When the camera reached bottom the deck crew was notified by radio to stop lowering. The operator continued to monitor the vehicle and provided commands to raise or lower it to keep the camera just above the bottom. Equipment Description: The TOAD was deployed from the lower arm of the vessel's port side J-frame. The TOAD is a camera sled based on the Guildline MiniBat model 8820 tow body. The frame has been extensively modified from its original configuration and was equipped with an ROS model 54-00100-13 color underwater video camera as the primary data collection instrument. The ROS camera was mounted to point at approximately a 45 degree angle toward the seafloor. A Deep Sea Power and Light model 2050 MultiSeaCam low-light color video camera was also mounted on the sled and aimed straight ahead. The signal from this camera was fed to a second video monitor to provide warning of underwater obstructions the sled might be headed for. Illumination was provided by two 500 W DeepSea Power & Light Multi-SeaLite model 1050 underwater lights mounted on the original sled frame. The lights were located near the base and each side of the sled to provide the maximum possible horizontal distance from the ROS camera. Cable between the sled and the surface consisted of a underwater electrical cable (cable 2, black in color) with an internal kevlar strength member to support the sled frame. The cable was led from the camera sled over a 22-inch diameter sheave hung from the J-frame, and from there around a gypsy head mounted on the alternate CTD winch, amidships on the vessel's port side. All TOAD surface components were located in the Dry Lab in an equipment rack on the after bulkhead. Name & address of person collecting data: John Rooney NOAA IRC NMFS/PIFSC/CRED 1845 WASP Blvd., Building 176 Honolulu, HI 96818 Data Files: Video data were recorded on a video tape recorder. The position of the camera sled was recorded in WGS-84 using Guildline MiniBat In-Tow data acquisition software and a data feed from a shipboard Northstar Chartplotter. File naming convention: Each tow is given a name consisting of a 3-letter designator for the island area followed by a two-digit year and three-digit tow number, which increments by one for each new tow around that island. For the island of Guam the designator is "GUA."During OES0308 (NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette's 8th cruise in calendar year 2003) the consecutive numbers started at GUA03001. Video tape labels, the navigation files (*.glo) and paper log forms are annotated with the tow name and number, e.g., GUA03002. If the navigation file is edited during processing the file name has a suffix 'a' added. For example, for a navigation data file named "GUA03002a.glo," the 'a' would indicate that metadata were extracted from the navigation data and recorded to a file with the same name as the navigation file except that a file type of '.met' was appended; for example, 'GUA03002a.glo.met. Time Correlation: All times are based on UTC. Two clocks were manually synchronized prior to starting data collection; the clock in the video character generator that was used to annotate the video tape, and the clock in the TOAD data acquisition computer. These clocks were set to UTC at the beginning of each evening's operations.

Resource Description: Digital video imagery that is geo-referenced to navigation files.