HR: 0800h
AN: SF41A-0764    [Abstracts]
TI: High Tech High School Interns Develop a Mid-Ocean Ridge Database for Research and Education
AU: Staudigel, D
EM: dstaudig@igpp.ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8800 Biological Grade, La Jolla, CA 92117 United States
AU: Delaney, R
EM: rdelaney@hightechhigh.org
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8800 Biological Grade, La Jolla, CA 92117 United States
AU: Staudigel, H
EM: hstaudig@igpp.ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8800 Biological Grade, La Jolla, CA 92117 United States
AU: * Koppers, A A
EM: dstaudig@igpp.ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8800 Biological Grade, La Jolla, CA 92117 United States
AU: Miller, S P
EM: spmiller@ucsd.edu
AF: Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 8800 Biological Grade, La Jolla, CA 92117 United States
AB: Mid-ocean ridges (MOR) represent one of the most important geographical and geological features on planet Earth. MORs are the locations where plates spread apart, they are the locations of the majority of the Earths' volcanoes that harbor some of the most extreme life forms. These concepts attract much research, but mid-ocean ridges are still effectively underrepresented in the Earth science class rooms. As two High Tech High School students, we began an internship at Scripps to develop a database for mid-ocean ridges as a resource for science and education. This Ridge Catalog will be accessible via http://earthref.org/databases/RC/ and applies a similar structure, design and data archival principle as the Seamount Catalog under EarthRef.org. Major research goals of this project include the development of (1) an archival structure for multibeam and sidescan data, standard bathymetric maps (including ODP-DSDP drill site and dredge locations) or any other arbitrary digital objects relating to MORs, and (2) to compile a global data set for some of the most defining characteristics of every ridge segment including ridge segment length, depth and azimuth and half spreading rates. One of the challenges included the need of making MOR data useful to the scientist as well as the teacher in the class room. Since the basic structure follows the design of the Seamount Catalog closely, we could move our attention to the basic data population of the database. We have pulled together multibeam data for the MOR segments from various public archives (SIOExplorer, SIO-GDC, NGDC, Lamont), and pre-processed it for public use. In particular, we have created individual bathymetric maps for each ridge segment, while merging the multibeam data with global satellite bathymetry data from Smith & Sandwell (1997). The global scale of this database will give it the ability to be used for any number of applications, from cruise planning to data
DE: 3035 Midocean ridge processes
DE: 3045 Seafloor morphology and bottom photography
DE: 3099 General or miscellaneous
SC: Special Focus: Advances in Data Acquisition, Management, Analysis and Display [SF]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting