OCEANOGRAPHIC AND ACOUSTIC MEASUREMENTS IN DRAKE PASSAGE

Abstract

On December 2001 the Argentinean Naval Service of Research and Development participated in the LMG01-9 expedition to Antarctic Peninsula, which was part of the Antarctic Program of the National Science Foundation of the USA for 2001. The inclusion of a SENID researcher, in the role of scientific national observer, on board the icebreaker R/V Lawrence M. Gould enabled our institute access to additional at-sea measurements. The main purposes of the expedition were primarily focused in two research projects from foreign institutes which were out of the scope of local interests. However, in-situ measurements led also to valuable information on temperature, salinity, bathymetry, vectorial current velocity obtained with an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and planktonic organisms, along Drake Passage and in Antarctic Peninsula's adjacent waters. Oceanographic and acoustic measurements are being processed as input data for further computation of several acoustic parameters such as Volume Backscattering Strengths. Sound velocity profiles have been already calculated. Moreover, detection of Subantarctic and Polar fronts, eddies and jets could be achieved as a result of collected data analysis