Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center (PIBHMC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
200611
CRED Optical Validation Data at the island of Ta'u in American Samoa, 2006 to support Benthic Habitat Mapping (TOAD)
Video imagery, track line navigation files, and log sheets
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pibhmc/
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pibhmc/pibhmc_amsamoa_tau_optical.htm
Optical validation data were collected using a Tethered Optical Assessment Device (TOAD), an underwater sled
equipped with an underwater digital video camera and lights. Data were collected in American Samoa, around the island
of Ta'u to support Benthic Habitat Mapping efforts during NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette cruise HI0602, on March 2, 2006.
These data provide optical observations that will be correlated with bathymetry and acoustic backscatter imagery
to develop a benthic habitat map of Ta'u. Refer to supplemental information for description of instrument and survey.
Ta'u Island is part of the Manu'a Island group in American Samoa, situated approximately 150 km
northeast of Tutuila and 20 km east of Olosega Island. Ta'u is an extremely steep, heavily vegetated high volcanic
island with almost no surrounding banks; the seafloor surrounding Ta'u drops steeply to abyssal depths. Centered at
14.23 degrees S, 169.50 degrees W, Ta'u has very little human settlement.
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 new TOAD sled body used for the 2004 data collection is constructed from a shortened Phantom
ROV body with a tail piece added for stability. It is equipped with a Deep Sea Power and Light Multi SeaCam 2060 color
video camera, two 500 W DeepSea Power and Light Multi-SeaLite model 1050 underwater lights, a sonar altimeter to detect
the height of the camera above the seafloor, a pair of parallel lasers to determine the size/scale of viewed objects,
a compass to determine the sled heading and orientation, and a depth (pressure) sensor. The video signal from the sled
is send via a coaxial conductor within a 200 m long and 127 mm diameter umbilical cable to a topside control unit.
Name & address of person collecting data:
Scott Ferguson
NOAA IRC
NMFS/PIFSC/CRED
1845 WASP Blvd., Building 176
Honolulu, HI 96818
Data Files: Video data were recorded to digital video cassette using a video recorder mounted in the control console.
Video backups were made at the end of each day. Hypack Max (version 2.12A) hydrographic survey software was used to
record GPS data, water depth, length of umbilical cable in the water, and camera sled information (height, heading,
etc.), which provide ship and camera sled positions for the duration of individual tows.
File naming convention: Each tow is given a name consisting of a three-letter designator for the island area, followed
by a two-digit year and a three-digit tow number, which increments by one for each new tow around that island. For
example, during OES0402 (NOAA Ship Oscar Elton Sette's 2nd cruise in calendar year 2004) the consecutive tows at Tutuila
started at TUT04000. For subsequent cruises in the same year, the tow numbers will increment by 100, so the first tow
on the next cruise to Tutuila in 2004 will be tow number TUT04100. Video tape labels and paper log forms are also
annotated with the tow name; if more than one tape is required for a tow, consecutive letters are added to the end of
the tow number (TUT04100a, TUT04100b, TUT04100c...). Navigation files generated by Hypack Max follow the Hypack CHS
filename format consisting of the year, the first two letters of the platform name, the Julian date, and the hour and
minute in which the file was started, followed by the extension .raw. For example, a file begun at 1935 on Dec. 10, 2004
(Julian date 345) aboard the Carolinian would be 2004CA3451935.raw.
Time Correlation: All clocks were synchronized to UTC at the beginning of each day's operations. Two clocks were manually
synchronized to GPS-derived times: the acquisition computer clock and the internal clock of the OSD-79 on-screen
display unit.
Resource Description: Digital video imagery that is geo-referenced to navigation files.
20060302
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ground condition
None planned
-169.57
-169.40
-14.19
-14.30
NCEI Geoportal FilterCoRIS_MetadataCRCP ProjectBenthic Habitat Mapping and Characterization - American Samoa and PRIA1084
CoRIS Theme Thesaurus
EARTH SCIENCE > Biosphere > Aquatic Habitat > Benthic Habitat
EARTH SCIENCE > Biosphere > Zoology > Corals > Reef monitoring and assessment > Photographic analysis > Videography
EARTH SCIENCE > Biosphere > Zoology > Corals > Reef monitoring and assessment > Mapping
None
Tethered Optical Assessment Device (TOAD)
Underwater video
HI0602
CoRIS Discovery Thesaurus
Visual Images > Habitats
ISO 19115 Topic Category
environment
007
biota
002
CoRIS Place Thesaurus
OCEAN BASIN > Pacific Ocean > Manu'a Group > Ta'u Island (14S169W0012)
COUNTRY/TERRITORY > United States of America > American Samoa > American Samoa > Ta'u Island (14S169W0012)
CoRIS Region
AmSam
None
Please acknowledge the NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Division,Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center as the
source of this information.
Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center (PIBHMC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
John Rooney
mailing and physical address
NOAA IRC
NMFS/PIFSC/CRED
1845 WASP Blvd., Building 176
Honolulu
HI
96818
808 725-5360
808 725-5429
nmfs.pic.credinfo@noaa.gov
e-mail preferred
Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center, Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), Pacific Islands
Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), NOAA
Not applicable
Unclassified
Not applicable
Unspecified
Complete
Hypack Max includes a window for manual entry of the length of camera sled
cable paid out, a utility to enter horizontal and vertical offsets between the GPS antenna and sheave over which the
camera sled cable passes, and a built-in caternary function. Using these data, Hypack Max automatically estimates
the camera sled's position. Analysis of tow data indicate that horizontal positional uncertainty associated with the
location of the camera sled recorded in Hypack is plus or minus 13 m.
After a tow was completed the video tape data was reviewed by spot-checking the tape to verify
that data were recorded. Backups were made at the end of each day. Raw data files recorded time, horizontal position,
and ship's heading information, and were copied from the acquisition computer to the data archive. Tow-specific
metadata were recorded in the data archive in the same location as the raw data, in a spreadsheet that was then
referred to in creating metadata records of each island where data were collected during the cruise. Raw data files
were exported as comma-delimited text files which were then imported into ArcGIS 9.x and saved as shapefiles. video
still frames spaced 20 m apart were analyzed. For the analysis, five circles approximately 0.5 mm in diameter and
spaced equidistantly were drawn in a horizontal line on a piece of clear plastic sheet taped to a computer monitor
screen. For every still frame, within the center of each circle the substrate (rock, sand, rubble, etc.) living
cover (seagrass, scleractinian [stony] coral, macroalgae, etc) and growth morphology of coral colonies (branching,
encrusting, etc) were identified. Classification information was recorded on a spreadsheet for each camera tow
according to the codes and include the type of substrate, living cover (if any), and dominant variation in relief
seen in the image. The substrate within the first circle is recorded under the column labeled S1 while the living
cover and coral growth morphology within the same circle are recorded under the columns labeled C1 and CM1. Data
from the second circle are recorded under columns S2, C2, CM2, and so on. Spreadsheets with benthic classification
data from video analysis are attributed to the appropriate tow track shapefile and along-track location. Color
coding is then applied to highlight features of interest, such as the percentage of the seafloor covered by living
corals or other benthic fauna found at each location or different types of substrate.
20061130
Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center (PIBHMC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
John Rooney
mailing and physical address
NOAA IRC
NMFS/PIFSC/CRED
1845 WASP Blvd., Building 176
Honolulu
HI
96818
808 725-5360
808 725-5429
nmfs.pic.credinfo@noaa.gov
e-mail preferred
Downloadable Data
These data are not to be used for navigational purposes. NOAA makes no warranty regarding these
data, expressed or implied, nor does the fact of distribution constitute such a warranty. NOAA cannot assume liability
for any damages caused by any errors or omissions in these data, nor as a result of the failure of these data to function
on a particular system.
ASCII
Each comma-delimited record contains the UTC date and time, latitude, longitude, altitude,
vehicle depth, and water depth.
List of navigation files:
The shapefiles showing camera sled tracks listed below consist of a collection of files with the names listed below,
followed by these extensions: .dbf, .shp, .shx, and .prj. All file types are necessary to properly displaying the
source data.
TAU06011-015 (5 files)
CD-ROM
ISO 9660
avi
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/pibhmc/pibhmc_amsamoa_optical_data.html
None
Data is available in VHS format. Contact distributor.
These data were recorded on 6 video tapes
List of video tapes:
TAU06011a-b, Mini DV, Master and Backup
TAU06012, Mini DV, Master and Backup
TAU06013, Mini DV, Master and Backup
TAU06014, Mini DV, Master and Backup
TAU06015, Mini DV, Master and Backup
None
20200329
20100823
Pacific Islands Benthic Habitat Mapping Center (PIBHMC), Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (CRED), Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center (PIFSC), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
mailing and physical address
NOAA IRC
NMFS/PIFSC/CRED
1845 WASP Blvd., Building 176
Honolulu
HI
96818
808 725-5360
808 725-5429
nmfs.pic.credinfo@noaa.gov
e-mail preferred
FGDC Content Standards for Digital Geospatial Metadata
FGDC-STD-001-1998
universal time
None
None
20100823045218
None
20060302
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https://www.coris.noaa.gov/metadata/records/html/cred_toad_tau_hi0602_2006.html
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