FGDC Metadata

In June of 1990 and July of 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducted geophysical surveys to investigate the shallow geologic framework of the Mississippi-Alabama-Florida shelf in the northern Gulf of Mexico, from Mississippi Sound to the Florida Panhandle. Work was done onboard the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute R/V Kit Jones as part of a project to study coastal erosion and offshore sand resources. This report is part of a series to digitally archive the legacy analog data collected from the Mississippi-Alabama SHelf (MASH). The MASH data rescue project is a cooperative effort by the USGS and the Minerals Management Service (MMS). This report serves as an archive of high-resolution scanned Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) and Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) images of the original boomer paper records, navigation files, trackline maps, Geographic Information System (GIS) files, cruise logs, and formal Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata.

A standardized naming convention was established to allow for better management of scanned trackline images within the MASH data rescue project. Each cruise received a unique field activity identification (ID) based on the year the data were collected, the first two digits of the survey vessel name, and the number of cruises made (to date) by that vessel that year (for example, 91KI2 represents the second cruise made by the R/V Kit Jones in 1991.) The new field activity IDs 90KI1, 90KI2, and 91KI2 presented in this report were originally referred to as Kit Jones 90-1, Kit Jones 90-2, and Kit Jones 91-2 at the USGS in St. Petersburg, FL, and 90013 and 91020 at the USGS in Woods Hole, MA. A table showing the naming convention lineage for cruise IDs in the MASH data rescue series is included as a Portable Data Format (PDF) file. This report serves as an archive of high resolution scanned Tagged Image File Format (TIFF) and Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) images of the original boomer paper records, navigation files, trackline maps, Geographic Information System (GIS) files, cruise logs, and formal Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata for cruises 90KI1, 90KI2, and 91KI2.

The boomer system uses an acoustic energy source called a plate, which consists of capacitors charged to a high voltage and discharged through a transducer in the water. The source is towed on a sled, at sea level and when discharged emits a short acoustic pulse, or shot, which 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 hydrophone receiver, and the amplitude of the reflected energy is recorded by an Edward P. Curley Lab (EPC) thermal plotter. This process is repeated at timed intervals (for example, 0.5 seconds (s)) and recorded for specific intervals of time (for example, 100 milliseconds (ms)). The timed intervals are also referred to as the shot interval or fire rate. On analog records, the recorded interval is referred to as the sweep, which is the amount of time the recorder stylus takes to sweep from the top of the record to the bottom of the record, thereby recording the amplitude of the reflected energy of one shot. In this way, consecutive recorded shots produce a two-dimensional (2-D) vertical image of the shallow geologic structure beneath the ship track.