Canadian Hydrographic Service - Levels of Service

A relative risk classification for areas delineated by Canadian Hydrographic Service chart limits.

A classification is used to determine a Level of Service for charts and other CHS products and services.
The risk levels are defined as High, Medium and Low with the High-risk areas receiving more of our resources and more frequent updates.
Many factors are considered in the risk assessments such as the number of accidents in a given area, tanker routes, traffic, infrastructure, navigational complexity, and more.

For more information, please visit the Levels of Service section of the Canadian Hydrographic Services web site.

Coverage of raster CHS nautical charts in the Marine GeoGarage
705 available charts displayed on the total of 956 charts published 

>>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

• High-risk charts (paper, ENC, raster) are reviewed at least once every five years and new editions are issued when necessary.
• BSB updates (file replacement) are issued monthly.
• Medium-risk charts are reviewed at least once every ten years and new editions are issued when necessary.
• Low-risk charts are generally updated through "Notices to Mariners" only.
• The release of new editions (ENCs and paper charts) is within three months of each other.
• Charts and Publications are always available.
• The four Catalogues of Nautical Charts and Publications are updated and published every two years.

Maps reveal Prom's underwater secrets

Researchers from Deakin University and Parks Victoria have been surveying the Wilsons Promontory seabed using multi-beamed sonar mapping technology.

From TheAge

Until now, the landscape under the waves at Wilsons Promontory has been a mystery.
But the sea floor's secrets have been uncovered by researchers from Deakin University and Parks Victoria.
Marine ecologists and engineers spent six weeks surveying the seabed using multi-beamed sonar mapping technology.
They found unexpected features such as a 30-metre-high underwater sand dune and holes in rock up to 90 metres deep.
Ancient waterways dating back 20,000 years, when the area was above water and linked the mainland to Tasmania, have also been found 60 to 70 metres below the surface.

 >>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

Deakin University marine scientist Daniel Ierodiaconou said the findings were unexpected.
''The amount of structure and variation in the detail surprised us all,'' he said.
''We expected to see something but we just didn't expect it to be so visually incredible.''

Parks Victoria marine science manager Steffan Howe said he was interested to learn that not all of the sea floor was composed of sand.
''It looks like we have large areas of reef, which is potentially important because with a hard bottom we have the potential for more plants and animals,'' he said.
''You can get really diverse communities of sponges, hard and soft corals and sea squirts.''

Among the creatures to call the area home are the Australian fur seal, the southern sand octopus, red velvet fish and orange sponge.

Wilsons Promontory sea mapping

The maps generated from the sea floor survey will inform the management of the 15,580 hectare site, Victoria's largest marine national park.

''This information is filling a really important gap,'' Dr Howe said.
''We need to know what's down there to understand how to manage the park better.''

For example, marine ecologists know that the northern Pacific seastar - one of Australia's biggest marine pests, which was found in Tidal River last year - prefers to live in a sandy environment.
The survey allows targeted monitoring of sandy habitat.

An introduction to marine habitat mapping in Victorian Marine protected areas.

Shaped by strong currents from the north and west, the seascape supports a diverse range of species, including fish, seaweed and small invertebrates.
For more than 120 of them, the marine park is the furthest part of their distribution range.

China seas hit by largest-ever algae bloom : Yellow Sea turns green

Algae overwhelms a popular beach in Qingdao, east China.
Officials use bulldozers to remove it. The algae boom may have been caused by pollution from industry.

The region has had algae booms six years in a row, but this year's is twice as big as the previous largest in 2008.

The algae is not dangerous to humans but can suffocate marine life by sucking oxygen from the water.

From InquirerNews & China Daily

The seas off China have been hit by their largest ever growth of algae, ocean officials said, with vast waves of green growth washing onto the shores of the Yellow Sea.

Pictures showed beachgoers swimming and playing in the green tide in the eastern city of Qingdao, while bulldozers shoveled up tons of algae from the sand.

 >>> geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

The State Oceanic Administration said on its website that the algae, enteromorpha prolifera, started to appear a week ago and had spread across an area of 28,900 square kilometers (7,500 square miles).

Algae in the Yellow Sea near Qingdao in 2008.

Photo: MODIS Rapid Response Team / Earth Observatory

The previous largest bloom was in 2008 when it affected around 13,000 square kilometers, it said.
Qingdao officials said they had removed around 7,335 tons of algae, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

The algal phenomenon is usually caused by an abundance of nutrients in the water, especially phosphorus, although the triggers for the enormous blooms that began to appear in the Yellow Sea in 2007 remain uncertain.

The China Daily quoted professor Bao Xianwen, of the Qingdao-based Ocean University of China, as saying: “It must have something to do with the change in the environment, but we are not scientifically sure about the reasons.”

The algae are not toxic nor detrimental to water quality, but lead to extreme imbalances in marine ecosystems by consuming large quantities of oxygen and creating hydrogen sulphide.

Cleaning algae off a fence near the coastline.

After a week's cleaning efforts, the biggest algae outbreak since 2008 in the coastal waters near Qingdao, Shandong province, is under control, with tourists and locals swarming to the beach once more.
Experts estimate that the algae will thoroughly vanish before August as the temperature rises.
Han Peijin, director of the No 6 sea bathing beach of Qingdao, is used to dealing with the algae every summer, and he is optimistic about the situation.
"More than 10,000 people came here on Sunday, and you could barely see the algae today," he told China Daily on Monday.

"The algae blooms last less than a month, and it's under control now."
Local authorities have launched a special team to monitor and clean up the algae.

Since June 8, 24,400 meters of netting has been laid in waters around the coasts of major tourist attractions, 230 fishing boats have collected 22,000 metric tons of algae, and 51,072 tons of algae brought ashore by waves has been removed by bulldozers.

A large number of university students also volunteered to clean up the beach.

Liu Tao, an algae expert at the Ocean University of China, said the algae - or enteromorpha prolifera - will not survive when the water temperature goes above 23 C.

Thus far, the water temperature is 19 C, "therefore although it looks well today, we still have to keep alert," he said.
"Besides, a large amount of precipitation will also kill the algae. A lack of rain is part of the reason for this year's outbreak."
Pang Shaojun, another ocean university researcher, said pollution and eutrophication are the primary cause of algae blooms, and the algae appearing in Qingdao has mainly drifted from South China.

Pang also said that how to deal with algae outbreaks has become a hot research point for scientists around the world.
"Harvested" algae is transported to local processing centers and used to make feed and fertilizer by companies, including China Ocean University Organism Project Development.
The company uses algae in three ways, namely feed additives, organic fertilizers and materials for healthcare products, said Shan Junwei, president of the company.
"Since 2008 we have developed quality algae fertilizers for fruit trees, vegetables, organic agriculture and urban gardening," he said.
"Hundreds of tons of bio-fertilizers made of algae have been sold to more than 20 provinces and regions."
The company is researching a method to extract polysaccharide from the algae for nutritional products.

Links :

Primeval underwater forest discovered in Gulf of Mexico

A primeval underwater ocean has been unearthed just a few miles off the coast of Alabama.

Here, a sonar map reveals its extent.
credit: David Dodd, University of Southern Mississippi Department of Marine Science

From LiveSciences

Scuba divers have discovered a primeval underwater forest off the coast of Alabama.
The Bald Cypress forest was buried under ocean sediments, protected in an oxygen-free environment for more than 50,000 years, but was likely uncovered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, said Ben Raines, one of the first divers to explore the underwater forest and the executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation, which researches estuaries.
The forest contains trees so well-preserved that when they are cut, they still smell like fresh Cypress sap, Raines said.

 Gulf of Mexico’s bottom south of the Fort Morgan peninsula

The location of the forest is a closely guarded secret,

about ten miles out to sea, 60 feet under the Gulf of Mexico

>>> general geolocalization with the Marine GeoGarage <<<

The stumps of the Cypress trees span an area of at least 0.5 square miles (1.3 square kilometers), several miles from the coast of Mobile, Ala., and sit about 60 feet (18 meters) below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.
Despite its discovery only recently, the underwater landscape has just a few years to be explored, before wood-burrowing marine animals destroy the ancient forest.

 Ben Raines, executive director of the Weeks Bay Foundation along with his team discovered the well preserved Bald Cypress forest lying on an oxygen free environment that was buried under layers of ocean sediments for more than 50,000 years

photo : Reuters

Closely guarded secret

Raines was talking with a friend who owned a dive shop about a year after Hurricane Katrina.
The dive shop owner confided that a local fisherman had found a site teeming with fish and wildlife and suspected that something big was hidden below.
The diver went down to explore and found a forest of trees, then told Raines about his stunning find.

But because scuba divers often take artifacts from shipwrecks and other sites, the dive shop owner refused to disclose the location for many years, Raines said.
In 2012, the owner finally revealed the site's location after swearing Raines to secrecy. Raines then did his own dive and discovered a primeval Cypress swamp in pristine condition.
The forest had become an artificial reef, attracting fish, crustaceans, sea anemones and other underwater life burrowing between the roots of dislodged stumps.
Some of the trees were truly massive, and many logs had fallen over before being covered by ocean sediment. Raines swam the length of the logs.
"Swimming around amidst these stumps and logs, you just feel like you're in this fairy world," Raines told LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Ancient underwater forest 50,000 year old swamp discovered

Primeval forest

Raines reached out to several scientists to learn more about the forest.
One of those scientists was Grant Harley, a dendrochronologist (someone who studies tree rings) at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Harley was intrigued, and together with geographer Kristine DeLong of Louisiana State University, set out to discover the site's secrets.
The research team created a sonar map of the area and analyzed two samples Raines took from trees. DeLong is planning her own dive at the site later this year.
Because of the forest depth, scuba divers can only stay below for about 40 minutes before coming up.
Carbon isotopes (atoms of the same element that have different molecular weights) revealed that the trees were about 52,000 years old.

The trees' growth rings could reveal secrets about the climate of the Gulf of Mexico thousands of years ago, during a period known as the Wisconsin Glacial period, when sea levels were much lower than they are today.
In addition, because Bald Cypress trees can live a thousand years, and there are so many of them, the trees could contain thousands of years of climate history for the region, Harley said.
"These stumps are so big, they're upwards of two meters in diameter — the size of trucks," Harley told OurAmazingPlanet.
"They probably contain thousands of growth rings."
The team, which has not yet published their results in a peer-reviewed journal, is currently applying for grants to explore the site more thoroughly.
Harley estimates they have just two years.
"The longer this wood sits on the bottom of the ocean, the more marine organisms burrow into the wood, which can create hurdles when we are trying to get radiocarbon dates," Harley said.
"It can really make the sample undatable, unusable."

Links :

• Ben Raines blog : Ancient forest lies 10 miles off the Alabama coast / Ancient underwater forest off Alabama is much older than scientists thought

Concern over 'high seas security loophole'

 Global ship traffic seen from space (FleetMon satellite AIS)
All passenger ships and merchant vessels above gross 300t must now carry and use the Automatic Identification System (AIS). It is a powerful tool.

AIS broadcasts not just position, course, and speed, but also information about a ship's type, draught, cargo - even its captain.

Originally intended as a near-shore safety system, new satellite-borne receivers capable of picking up the signals mean AIS now operates across the globe.
But AIS has its limitations.

In the densest traffic lanes, it can be difficult from orbit to distinguish individual ships, and this will be even more challenging if all vessels are mandated to carry the system.

Also, in an ideal world, AIS needs to be used alongside other technologies.

Criminals will be tempted, for example, to disable their ship's AIS and conduct their activities in weather that impedes air reconnaissance.

But if an AIS receiver is mounted on a satellite that also has radar, it will be possible to detect this ship through cloudy skies, day or night. 

The ship's owners will then have to explain why their AIS is not switched on.

From BBC

All vessels using international waters should be identifiable and be part of a global tracking system to close a "security loophole" on the high seas.

The call was made by the Global Ocean Commission, an "independent high-level initiative on the future of the ocean".
The commission said current technology made the idea feasible and affordable.

At present, only passenger and large merchant vessels are legally required to have unique ID numbers and tracking devices.

Previous studies have highlighted a link between the lack of unique identification and tracking technology and criminal activity, such as people trafficking, illegal fishing and terrorism.
Officials investigating the 2008 Mumbai attacks in India, which left more than 160 people dead and injured hundreds more, said the attackers used a private fishing trawler to reach the Indian city after they overpowered the vessels' crew.
"In the 21st Century, when governments are doing so much to make their borders and citizens secure, it seems extraordinary that they have left a loophole big enough to sail a trawler full of explosives through," commented Jose Maria Figueres, one of the commissioners and former Costa Rican President.
"There are details to be worked though, such as the cost of tracking systems, although from the evidence we have heard so far we do not think that will be an obstacle."
He added: "For the security of citizens around the world, it seems clear that it is time to close the loophole."

Vessels can use a number of electronic systems for identification and communication, one of which is known as the Automatic Identification System (AIS).
AIS is a short-range system, using VHF radio.
However, satellites in low-Earth orbit can also detect AIS signals, which provides real-time global coverage.

 ExactEarth satellite AIS

'Good guys' rewards

The commissioners said that many governments were taking steps to address the issue in their own waters but - they added - there had been very little progress to tackle the problem in waters outside of national jurisdiction.

 Localisation of vessels and small-sized boats with Pleiades-1A (Astrium ship detection & tracking)

Another commissioner and former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband observed that legally requiring ID and real-time tracking of vessels using the high seas would also deliver other benefits, such as cracking down on human trafficking and illegal fishing opportunities.
"Mandatory vessel ID and tracking would reward those who play by the rules and penalise those who do not," Mr Miliband said.
"It would create economic opportunities for the 'good guys' and improve the social conditions of seafarers."

Writing in the journal Science in 2010, a study suggested that up to 26m tonnes of fish, worth an estimated $23bn (£16bn), were landed illegally each year.
The commission issued its recommendations for vessel monitoring at the end of a two-day meeting in New York and is expected to publish its final report in mid-2014.

Links :

• Global Ocean Commission : High seas security loophole must be tightened
• Google : All the ships in the world (visualizing AIS data)