Multiplex Function Manganese Nodule Sounding System

Abstract

The MBSP acoustic system, jointly developed in 1987 by the State Oceanic Administration of the People’s Republic of China and the Raytheon Ocean System Company of USA was designed for sounding oceanic manganese nodules. The system is named on the basis of its four major functions, i.e., the manganese nodules finding (M), bathymetry (B), sub-bottom profiling (S) and pinger tracking (P). This system was installed on a Chinese R/V “Xianyanghong 16”. Results of sea trials and practical surveys for. about 18 months over a period of 4 years show that the performance of the system is within the expectation. Comparisons between the nodule abundance estimated by the MBSP system and that obtained by underwater photography or by grab sampling show that the average deviation of the system is about 20%.