Mapping Beaufort Sea Topography and Geophysical Settings Using High-Resolution Geospatial Data and GMT

Abstract

The papers presents an integrated processing of the high-resolution thematic data covering the area of the Beaufort Sea, a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, northern Canada and Alaska. Five thematic maps of the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean are presented. The cartographic techniques were performed by Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) scripting tool-set. The methodology presents the integration of the multi-source high-resolution thematic datasets: bathymetric GEBCO, IBCAO, topographic GLOBE, sediment thickness GlobSed, EGM2008 geoid model, GMT vector layers and geophysical gravity model from CryoSat-2 and Jason-1. There is an agreement with the data by their inspection and analysis of grids correlation. The bathymetric map demonstrated variations in depths with rapidly decreasing values in the Mackenzie River coasts, depicting the basin of the Beaufort Sea, large shelf in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and western part bordering the Chukchi Sea. The GDAL inspection shows that the GEBCO-based topography ranges between -3,973 m to 2,578 m. Gravity data shows that coastal areas in northern Canada and Alaska have values >20 mGal while the basin of the Beaufort Sea is dominated by the lower values at -65 to -45 mGal; the data range is from -155.097 to 366.939 mGal. The marine free-air gravity fields and geoid data demonstrate correlation with topographic isolines of the region. The data range for the sediment thickness is from 0.00 to 18064.53 m having maximal data at the Mackenzie River discharge area. A comprehensive compilation of the data on the Beaufort Sea visualized using GMT presents more insights into its bathymetric structure and geophysical fields distribution in context of the variability of the geological settings.