Archive of Digital Boomer and Chirp Seismic Reflection Data Collected During USGS Cruise 03SCC03 in Lake Pelto and Timbalier and Terrebonne Bays, Louisiana, September 2003

The USGS Florida Integrated Science Center (FISC) - St. Petersburg assigns a unique identifier to each cruise or field activity. For example, 03SCC03 tells us the data were collected in 2003 for the Subsidence and Coastal Change (SCC) study and the data were collected during the third field activity for that study in that calendar year. Refer to http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/programs/html/definition/activity.html for a detailed description of the method used to assign the cruise ID. The naming convention used for each seismic line is as follows: yye###a, where yy is the last two digits of the year in which the data were collected, e is a 1-letter abbreviation for the equipment type (for example, b for boomer and c for chirp), ### is a 3-digit number representing a specific track, and a is a letter representing the section of a line if recording was prematurely terminated or rerun for quality or acquisition problems. The boomer plate is an acoustic energy source that consists of capacitors charged to a high voltage and discharged through a transducer in the water. The transducer is towed on a sled at the sea surface and when discharged emits a short acoustic pulse, or shot, that propagates through the water and sediment column. The acoustic energy is reflected at density boundaries (such as the seafloor or sediment layers beneath the seafloor), detected by the receiver, and recorded by a PC-based seismic acquisition system. This process is repeated at timed intervals (for example, 0.5 s) and recorded for specific intervals of time (for example, 100 ms). In this way, a two-dimensional vertical image of the shallow geologic structure beneath the ship track is produced. A C-Products C-Boom power supply provided 100 joules per shot. Reflected energy was received by a Benthos MESH streamer and recorded by Triton Elics Delph Seismic acquisition software. The streamer, which was positioned parallel to the boomer sled and laterally separated from it by about 7 m, contains 10 hydrophones evenly spaced about every 30.5 cm (every 12 inches). Refer to figure 1 included with this archive (Data Series 238) for a diagram of acquisition geometry. The sample frequency of the data was 24 kHz. Record length for all tracklines was 100 ms. Based on survey speeds of 3.5-4 knots and a shot rate of every 0.5 s, shot spacing was about 1 m. The chirp system uses a signal of continuously varying frequency. The sound source and receiver is a towfish, which is typically flown 2-5 m above the seafloor. For each recorded shot of the chirp data, 3 channels of trace data are collected. Channel 3 is the "real," or in-phase component of the signal, channel 2 is the "imaginary," or quadrature component of the signal, and channel 1 is the "envelope," or product of channels 2 and 3. Only channel 1 was used to produce the profiles presented here. However, all channels are included in the SEG-Y data files. The seismic source employed for chirp data collection consisted of an EdgeTech X-Star SB-424 towfish running Triton Elics Delph Seismic FSSB software. Refer to figure 1 included with this archive (Data Series 238) for a diagram of acquisition geometry. The frequency range was 4-24 kHz, and the sample frequency of the data was 25 kHz. Record length was 30-48 ms. Based on survey speeds of 3.5-4 knots and a shot rate of 0.125 s, shot spacing was about 0.25 m. The unprocessed seismic data are stored in SEG-Y, integer, Motorola format, which is a standard digital format that can be read and manipulated by most seismic processing software packages (Barry and others, 1975). The SEG-Y formatted trace files have a .TRA extension. Additional recording parameters for each trace file can also be found in the .PAR file associated with each .TRA file. However, the .PAR and .PLN files included here are only needed to process or display the data with Triton Elics Delph Seismic software. The SEG-Y files will not fit on one disc. They are distributed onto two DVDs with the SEG-Y files for chirp lines 03c01-03c47 on disc 1 and the SEG-Y files for all boomer lines (03b48-03b62) and chirp lines 03c48a-03c62 on disc 2. Also provided are example Seismic Unix scripts that allow the user to strip off navigation fixes from the SEG-Y headers, along with a fix for every 500 shots (boomer) or every 1,000 shots (chirp), and produce a filtered and gained GIF image of each profile. The printable profiles provided here are GIF images that were filtered and gained using Seismic Unix software. The processed SEG-Y data were exported to Chesapeake Technology, Inc. (CTI) SonarWeb software to produce interactive versions of the profiles that allow the user to obtain a geographic location and depth from the profile for a curser position. This information is displayed in the status bar of the browser. Warning! The only supported web browsers that properly display all features of the interactive profiles are Internet Explorer 6 for Windows and Firefox 1.5 for all platforms. For all browsers, the status bar and JavaScript must be enabled. Firefox also requires "Change status bar text" to be checked under Advanced JavaScript Options. Caution use of other browsers may result in spurious or no information given in the status window. Firefox may be downloaded at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox.