Peter C. Wille, Sound images of the ocean in research and monitoring
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Peter C. Wille, Sound images of the ocean in research and monitoring Springer, 2005, 471 pp + CD-ROM, $129.00, ISBN 3-540-24122-1 Tim Le Bas
Published online: 19 January 2008 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
The oceans are often depicted on maps as grey featureless areas. Only 30% of the earth’s surface is above water and in increasingly crowded areas we are looking towards the oceans for new resources, and possibly living space. The use of sonar techniques and the production of imagery of the seafloor have now allowed a window into this environment. Often the pictures produced are used for academic research: to understand the natural environment and processes that exist in this quiet and generally undisturbed locale. The main thrust of this book is a compilation of thousands of hours of imagery acquisition from many different kinds of sonar systems, giving the reader an insight into the hitherto murky depths. Multibeam bathymetry data, from both deep water and coastal regions, are the most prominent examples, although sidescan data are also occasionally presented (with a varied level of processing from none to fully georeferenced). There are over 400 beautiful images of different seafloor environments, often in colour shaded relief or 3D, spanning a full variety of geological settings from all around the world. The sonar imagery is well described and comes with acquisition parameters, proper accreditation and an interpretation. However, many of the examples do not give detailed positioning or location. Literature references are provided, and are loosely linked to individual sections in the book. Just over half of the book presents these spectacular images and divides the examples into natural geological groupings, such as tectonic settings, volcanic formations and passive margins. The author has also added instances from specific geographic areas, namely, the Polar Regions,
the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea. The book has a slight bias towards European waters (rather than US), which is refreshing. The other half of the book is divided into the acoustical characteristics of ocean imagery and anthropological activity on the seafloor. There are superb examples of shipwrecks and some interesting data showing cables and pipelines. The description of acoustic techniques provides only a basic overview of the properties and artefacts seen in sonar data. Removal of all the acoustic formulae and diagrams to Appendix A aids understanding for a non-numerical geophysicist or geologist, though more illustrative diagrams would have helped. A CD-ROM is provided with the book. This contains around 40 of the imagery examples in the book allowing much higher detail investigation of the imagery than is possible with the book’s printed nature. These can be accessed by a variety of standard imagery software and the CD also provides the freeware software viewer ‘iView’ for 3D manipulation of the five model datasets. This is a lovely book for a compilation of beautiful data examples and detailed descriptions. The book
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