Processed continuous resistivity profile data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey in Great South Bay on Long Island, New York, on Sept. 23, 2008

The continuous resistivity profile (CRP) system used on this cruise was an AGI SuperSting marine system described at the website: www.agiusa.com/marinesystem.shtml. Two different streamers were used for data collection - not simultaneously. One streamer was a 50-m streamer with an 11 electrode array with electrodes spaced 5 meters apart. The other streamer was a 15-m streamer with an 11 electrode array with electrodes spaced 1.5 meters apart. In both cases, the source electrodes are graphite, while the receiver electrodes are stainless steel. A dipole-dipole configuration was used for the data collection in which two fixed current electrodes are assigned with the measurement of voltage potential between electrode pairs in the remaining electrodes. The maximum depth below the water surface the streamer can reach is approximately ¼ the streamer length. So for the 50-m streamer, maximum depth is about 12.5 meters, while the 15 meter streamer can reach about 3.75 meters. Each line of data acquisition records several files. The two files necessary for processing are the *.stg and the *.gps file. The STG file contains the resistivity data, while the GPS file contains the navigation information. The navigation system used in concert with the CRP system is a Lowrance LMS-480M with an LGC-2000 GPS antenna and a 200 kHz fathometer transducer. The transducer also contains a temperature sensor. Lowrance indicates the speed of sound used by the system is 4800 feet/second. Both the temperature and depth information are recorded in the logged GPS file. The CRP system images the subsurface electrical properties of an estuarine, riverine or lacustrine environment. Resistivity differences can be attributed to subsurface geology (conductive vs less conductive layers) and hydrogeologic conditions with fresh water exhibiting high resistivity and saline conditions showing low resistivity.

The resistivity data (*.stg) were merged with the navigation data (*.gps) and linearized using AGI's Marine Log Manager software. (Note that the Marine Log Manager version is different than the software version of the AGISSAdmin software of which it is a part - although shipped together, the software is developed separately). The version of Marine Log Manager used was AGI SSAdmin MLM v 1.3.4.217. The GPS offset in MLM was set to +2 because an offset value of 0 was used during data acquisition, yet the offset from the GPS antenna to the first electrode was 2 meters. The output from this process is a linearized STG file and a DEP file which contains water depths at distances along line. This process step and all subsequent process steps were performed by the same person - VeeAnn A. Cross.

Initially attempting to run L17F2 through MLM indicated too many navigation errors. A 30 second gap in the navigation was causing the problem which was adjusted for in the software INI file allowing a gap that large. Initial processing indicated a spike in the water column in L19F1 so the original STG file (L19F1.stg) was copied to L19F1_mod.stg and the electrodes associated with the anomaly at time 164957 were deleted.

Each DEP file was checked for anomalous bathymetry values, or duplicated distance along values, and those lines in the file were deleted.

EarthImager software does not require that a default resistivity value for the water column be supplied in the DEP file. If one is not supplied, then it calculates a value based on the first electrode pair. For this cruise salinity was measured on a water sample taken from the bay. The salinity was measured at 25 ppt. Using an average water temperature of 19.45 degrees Celsius, a resistivity value of 0.29 ohm-m was calculated to use for the data processing. This calculation was done using the website <http://www2.sese.uwa.edu.au/~hollings/pilot/denscalc.html> and using the 1/conductivity for the result. The water resistivity value was added to the appropriate place in the DEP files so that a known water resistivity value would be used in the calculations. As of 2012, the website for the density calculation has changed: http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/denscalc.html.

EarthImager version 2.2.8 build 562 was then used to process the data files. The *.ini file accompanying the results contains the parameters used during the processing. These parameters include: minimum voltage: 0.02; minimum abs(V/I): 2E-5; max repeat error: 3%; min apparent res: 0.03; max apparent res: 1000; max reciprocal error: 5%; remove negative resistivity, smooth model inversion; finite element method; Cholesky decomposition; Dirichlet boundary condition; thickness incremental factor: 1.1; depth factor: 1.1; max number of CG iterations: 100; stop criteria: number of iterations 8; max RMS 3%; error reduction 5%; L2Norm; CRP processing using a 65% overlap. These INI files can be loaded in EarthImager to help maintain consistent processing parameters for other datasets. When the files are processed, numerous files are generated. Because of the "roll-along" nature of the processing, each line takes several iterations of processing which are then combined into a single output. The output consists of numerous files including JPEG images and text files representing the XYZ position of each resistivity value. The output consists of numerous files including JPEG images and text files representing the XYZ position of each resistivity value. There are two JPEG image generated with each process when possible - a long version with the x-axis labeled with latitude and longitude values and a corresponding short version of the same information. The JPEG files produced use a color scale for the resistivity that is based on the data extent from that particular file. The JPEG images also include a plot of temperature along the line. In addition to the JPEG images, there are text files with the extensions of *.llt, and *.xyz. Each of these is a text file. The LLT file has four columns of information: longitude in decimal degrees, latitude in decimal degrees, depth in meters, and resistivity value in ohm-m. The XYZ file has three columns of information: distance along line in meters, depth in meters, and resistivity value in ohm-m. You can process an individual line as many times as you want and the software places the results in incrementing folder names starting with trial1. These data represent in most cases trial2, which is the processing with the water resistivity value. Because some of the files collected on this day are so short, the roll-along component of the processing was unnecessary. For this reason, the JPEG image and the XYZ data had to be saved manually. First, just the inverted resistivity line is displayed using View - Inverted Resistivity Section. Then the image can be saved using File - Save Image. And finally, the XYZ data had to be saved manually using File - Save Data in XYZ format. The XYZ output file extension is DAT instead of XYZ. This DAT file three columns of information: distance along line in meters, depth in meters, and resistivity value in ohm-m. Automatically generated is the file with the LLT extension. The LLT file has four columns of information: longitude in decimal degrees, latitude in decimal degrees, depth in meters, and resistivity value in ohm-m. These shorter data files also represent trial2 which is the processing with the water resistivity value. The white line appearing in most of the JPEG images is the seafloor position based on the bathymetry.

The XYZ output file was then loaded into MATLAB version 7.5.0.342 (R2007b), along with the depth information from the DEP file, to create a new JPEG image with the same color scale for all the data files. In this manner, the JPEG images can be compared directly. Care was taken to try to get the vertical and horizontal scales uniform as well, although this was not always possible due to MATLAB limitations. These images reside in the "matlabimages" folder. These JPEG images include a black line within the resistivity profile which represents the sediment water interface based on the depth values from the DEP file. The local MATLAB script used to load the 15-m streamer data was cp_gsbay_15m.m. The local MATLAB script used to export the JPEG image was exportfig.m.

Corel PhotoPaint v. 11 was used to crop excess white space from around the MATLAB resistivity profile JPEG images, saving the JPEGs with the same filename.

Edits to the metadata were made to fix any errors that MP v 2.9.36 flagged. This is necessary to enable the metadata to be successfully harvested for various data catalogs. In some cases, this meant adding text "Information unavailable" or "Information unavailable from original metadata" for those required fields that were left blank. Other minor edits were probably performed (title, publisher, publication place, etc.). Attempted to modify http to https where appropriate. Updated the link to the field activity. Moved the minimal source information provided to make it the first process step. The distribution format name was modified in an attempt to be more consistent with other metadata files of the same data format. Added a distribution format to account for the JPEG images in the zip file. The metadata date (but not the metadata creator) was edited to reflect the date of these changes. The metadata available from a harvester may supersede metadata bundled within a download file. Compare the metadata dates to determine which metadata file is most recent.

Added keywords section with USGS persistent identifier as theme keyword.