Seals map bathymetry of the Antarctic continental shelf

• Published in: Geophysical Research Letters
• Main Authors: Padman, Laurie, Costa, Daniel P., Bolmer, S. Thompson, Goebel, Michael E., Huckstadt, Luis A., Jenkins, Adrian, McDonald, Birgitte I., Shoosmith, Deborah R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Geophysical Union 2010
• Subjects: Antarctic continental shelf; Bathymetry; Seal dive depth; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Bellingshausen Sea; Antarc*; Elephant Seals
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/4164

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2010. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 37 (2010): L21601, doi:10.1029/2010GL044921. We demonstrate the first use of marine mammal dive-depth data to improve maps of bathymetry in poorly sampled regions of the continental shelf. A group of 57 instrumented elephant seals made on the order of 2 × 105 dives over and near the continental shelf on the western side of the Antarctic Peninsula during five seasons, 2005–2009. Maximum dive depth exceeded 2000 m. For dives made near existing ship tracks with measured water depths H<700 m, ∼30% of dive depths were to the seabed, consistent with expected benthic foraging behavior. By identifying the deepest of multiple dives within small areas as a dive to the seabed, we have developed a map of seal-derived bathymetry. Our map fills in several regions for which trackline data are sparse, significantly improving delineation of troughs crossing the continental shelf of the southern Bellingshausen Sea. This work was supported by: NASA grants NNG05GR58G, NNX06AD40G and NNG06GA69G to LP; ONR grant N00014‐05‐1‐ 0645 to DPC; NSF grants OPP‐0338101 to ESR, and ANT‐0440687 and ANT‐0523332 to DPC and MEG; and the U.S.‐AMLR program.