| Title | Seabed habitats of the Bay of Fundy, Atlantic Canada |
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| Author | Todd, B J ; Brown,
C J; Curtis, B; Kirchhoff, S; Larcharité, M; Sameoto, J A; Church, I |
| Source | Seafloor geomorphology as benthic habitat, GeoHab atlas of seafloor geomorphic features and benthic habitats; by Harris, P T (ed.); Baker, E (ed.); 2019 p. 243-265, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-814960-7.00013-0 |
| Image |  |
| Year | 2019 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20180235 |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Edition | 2 |
| Document | book |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | paper; on-line; digital |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | Eastern offshore region; New Brunswick; Nova Scotia |
| NTS | 21A/05; 21A/12; 21A/13; 21A/14; 21B; 21G/01; 21G/02; 21G/03; 21H/01; 21H/02; 21H/03; 21H/04; 21H/05; 21H/06; 21H/07; 21H/08; 21H/09; 21H/10; 21H/11 |
| Area | Bay of Fundy |
| Lat/Long WENS | -67.2500 -64.0000 46.0000 44.0000 |
| Subjects | marine geology; environmental geology; surficial geology/geomorphology; geophysics; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; Economics and Industry; marine environments; macrotidal environment;
geophysical surveys; acoustic surveys, marine; side-scan sonar; bathymetry; bedforms; glacial landforms; glacial history; glaciation; ice margins; marine sediments; postglacial deposits; boulders; gravels; sands; muds; tides; biological communities;
benthos; remote sensing; photogrammetric surveys; photography; models; topography; oceanography; sea level changes; marine resources; tidal power; Laurentide Ice Sheet; Habitats; Phanerozoic; Cenozoic; Quaternary |
| Illustrations | location maps; geoscientific sketch maps; bathymetric profiles; photographs |
| Program | Offshore Geoscience |
| Released | 2019 11 08 |
| Abstract | The Bay of Fundy, Canada, a large macrotidal embayment with the World's highest recorded tides, was mapped using multibeam sonar systems. High-resolution imagery of seafloor terrain and backscatter
strength, combined with geophysical and sampling data, reveal a suite of glacial landforms associated with the southwest margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The glacial signature is overprinted by postglacial sediments and a spectrum of bedforms
including flow-transverse bedforms occur as both discrete large two-dimensional dunes and as three-dimensional dunes in sand sheets, and flow-parallel bedforms consisting of numerous straight ridges. The suite of bedforms developed during the
Holocene, as tidal energy increased due to the bay approaching resonance.
Seafloor imagery has revealed that the Bay of Fundy supports a wide range of biological communities associated with the diverse geomorphological setting of the area. A full
range of seafloor substrata is represented ranging from bedrock through various mixtures of boulders, cobbles, gravel, sand, and mud, each supporting different biological assemblages. Applying structure-from-motion (SfM) analysis, high-resolution,
close-range photographs of the seabed can be used to generate 2D photomosaics and 3D topographic models of the seafloor. Future work will involve the comparison of species data with fine-scale geomorphology data extracted from the SfM analysis and
multibeam sonar data to determine statistical relationships between the physical surrogates and benthos across different spatial scales to gain insight into the abiotic drivers of biological patterns on the seafloor. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
The Bay of Fundy, Canada, with the World's highest recorded tides, was mapped using multibeam sonar systems. Sea floor imagery has revealed that the Bay
of Fundy supports a wide range of biological communities associated with the diverse geomorphological setting of the area. A full range of seafloor substrata is represented ranging from bedrock through various mixtures of boulders, cobbles, gravel,
sand and mud, each supporting different biological assemblages. High resolution photographs of the seabed were used to generate 2D photo mosaics and 3D topographic models of the seafloor. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 311330 |
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