Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Shallow Water Seafloor Geodesy: Gps On An Anchored Spar Buoy, Surui Xie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Measuring seafloor motion in shallow coastal water is challenging due to strong and highly variable oceanographic effects. Such measurements are potentially useful for monitoring near-shore coastal subsidence, subsidence due to petroleum withdrawal, strain accumulation/release processes in marine shelves and submerged volcanoes, and certain fresh water applications, such as volcano deformation in caldera-hosted lakes. I participated in a project to develop a seafloor geodetic system for this environment based on an anchored spar buoy topped by high precision GPS. Orientation of the buoy is measured using a digital compass that provides heading, pitch, and roll information. The combined orientation and GPS …