lemenkova.pdf (1.06 MB)
Mapping Beaufort Sea Topography and Geophysical Settings Using High-Resolution Geospatial Data and GMT
The papers presents an integrated
processing of the high-resolution thematic data covering the area of the
Beaufort Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, northern Canada and
Alaska. Five thematic maps of the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean are
presented. The cartographic techniques were performed by Generic Mapping
Tools (GMT) scripting toolset. The methodology presents the integration
of the multi-source high-resolution thematic datasets: bathymetric
GEBCO, IBCAO, topographic GLOBE, sediment thickness GlobSed, EGM2008
geoid model, GMT vector layers and geophysical gravity model from
CryoSat-2 and Jason-1. There is an agreement with the data by their
inspection and analysis of grids correlation. The bathymetric map
demonstrated variations in depths with rapidly decreasing values in the
Mackenzie River coasts, depicting the basin of the Beaufort Sea, large
shelf in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and western part bordering the
Chukchi Sea. The GDAL inspection shows that the GEBCO-based topography
ranges between -3,973 m to 2,578 m. Gravity data shows that coastal
areas in northern Canada and Alaska have values >20 mGal while the
basin of the Beaufort Sea is dominated by the lower values at -65 to -45
mGal; the data range is from -155.097 to 366.939 mGal. The marine
free-air gravity fields and geoid data demonstrate correlation with
topographic isolines of the region. The data range for the sediment
thickness is from 0.00 to 18064.53 m having maximal data at the
Mackenzie River discharge area. A comprehensive compilation of the data
on the Beaufort Sea visualized using GMT presents more insights into its
bathymetric structure and geophysical fields distribution in context of
the variability of the geological settings.