Positioning in Marine Mapping and Charting

Abstract

The workshop on “Positioning in Marine Mapping and Charting” (INSMAP 86 Workshop #5) was attended by 32 participants from several defense, governmental, and academic institutions. For mapping and charting at different scales, several specific topics were discussed. The different scales were defined as: (1) local - point sampling such as coring, dredging, photography, etc; (2) area - local studies restricted to areas smaller than several hundred to a few thousand square nautical miles; (3) regional - areas of substantial size such as the Exclusive Economic Zone off the west coast of the United States (approximately 250,000 square nautical miles) or the Gulf of Mexico; (4) global - areas equivalent to ocean basins or mapping programs associated with global tectonic problems. Topics for discussion at the various scales included: (1) what are the greatest demands (e.g., accuracy, range, lifespan) and limitations (e.g., cost, political boundaries) for the positioning system; (2) what are the unique demands asked of a positional system such as positioning of secondary systems (e.g., streamers, camera sleds, side-scan sonar fish, etc; (3) what are the real world factors limiting successful positioning; (4) what can be done to overcome particular factors; and (5) what recommendations can be made to INSMAP 86 regarding research and developmental activities which will meet future mapping and charting positional requirements.