Texas A&M University
Department of Oceanography
Side-scan sonar: Illustrations
Towfish track
From the sea surface looking straight down to the seafloor, your view of the towfish's path might look like the dotted lines in the example below. At the beginning of its track, (1) the ship tows the towfish in a straight line about 20 kilometers, (2) moves over 2,000 meters, turns around, and (3) tows the fish in a line parallel to the first line. The ship will tow the fish in this manner for many hours and many kilometers to collect sonar images of a large area of the seafloor.
http://oceanography.tamu.edu/Quarterdeck/1998/3/sager-towfishtrack.html
Copyright 1998-1999, Department
of Oceanography, Texas A&M University.
Updated November 24, 1998. (abdw)
Send Quarterdeck inquiries to quarterdeck@ocean.tamu.edu.
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