Science8 min read
Counting Fish With Sound: Acoustic Surveys Explained
How do you count fish you can't see? Acoustic surveys use sonar to turn echoes into biomass estimates. Here's how echosounders work — and their limits.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
#sonar
4 articles
Science8 min read
Sounding Out a Forest: How Sonar Maps Kelp Reefs
Multibeam and sidescan sonar build metre-scale maps of reef relief, substrate and kelp canopy. How acoustic mapping works, and what it can and can't see.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Science7 min read
How We Map the Seafloor: Multibeam, Sidescan, Satellites and Robots
Multibeam sonar, sidescan texture, satellite bathymetry and AUVs: how modern seafloor mapping works, what each tool can resolve, and why reefs need it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Field Notes6 min read
Fogbound: Surveying a Reef You Cannot See
Three days of camanchaca fog shut down every camera we own on the Humboldt Coast. The survey didn't stop — it changed tools. How to work a reef blind.
Jack Callum ·