Mine Burial Research Articles

Exploration of the munition dumpsite Kolberger Heide in Kiel Bay, Germany: Example for a standardised hydroacoustic and optic monitoring approach

Post-war marine munition dumpsites do exist and are acknowledged by authorities, but their real extent and their effect onto the environment are mostly unknown. Military historic reconstruction and ocean current data (from in-situ measurements and modelled data) indicate that the German dumpsite in the Baltic Sea ‘Kolberger Heide’ is an active environment with a huge content of discarded munition material (DMM). Repeated high-resolution multibeam and underwater video surveys prove that Kolberger Heide contains more than 1,000 munition objects in the form of e.g. moored mines, ground mines, torpedoes and aerial bombs. An unsupervised seafloor classification was performed to show that corroded munition objects and proud explosives are in direct contact with the diverse local marine flora and fauna. Also the fact that the dumpsite is in close proximity to the shore in very shallow water (less than 15 m water depth) and displacement and burial of mines can be observed, demand an effective and standardised monitoring procedure. Via the combined approach of hydroacoustic and optical methods, areas can be identified, which should be prioritized when it comes to monitoring.

Numerical prediction on the scour burial of cylinder object freely resting on the sandy seabed in the East China Sea using the DRAMBUIE model

After experiencing 8-day combined tidal current, circulation and wave actions, scour depth surrounding cylinder object freely resting on sandy seabed in the East China Sea (ECS) in January is numerically predicted using the DRAMBUIE model designed for scour burial, which has been widely used and verified by in-situ experiments. During the period of numerical integration, the value of timet is generally variable at every time step via the special time-stepped approach developed by this paper to eliminate the time error. The tidal current velocity, wave orbital velocity and the depth-averaged circulation in the ECS have been obtained by numerical simulations with Estuarine Coastal and Ocean Model (ECOM), Simulating Waves Nearshore (SWAN) model and Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) model respectively. The control experiment and several idealized test cases on influential factors in scour depth reveal that the dominant hydrodynamic factor is tidal current in the ECS under normal weather conditions, and the impacts of shelf circulation and wave motion on local scour almost can be ignored with an exception of the Kuroshio area where the high-speed mainstream of Kuroshio flows. It is also indicated that in sandy sediments, the distribution of scour depth nearly follows the pattern of tidal currents, while the secondary influencing factor on scour depth appears to be grain size of sandy sediment in the ECS. Numerical tests on sediment grain size further testify that much finer sand is more easily scoured, and an increasing trend for scour depth with reduction of grain size is displayed due to imposed resistance of larger sized particles. Three aspects explored by this paper, including the empirical equations in the Defense Research Agency Mine Burial Environment (DRAMBUIE) model, the accuracy of inputs and infill process can severely affect the prediction of scour depth surrounding cylinder objects freely resting on sandy seabed in the ECS.

Mine Burial in the Shoaling Zone: Scaling of Laboratory Results to Oceanic Situations

During the past several years, the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Group at Arizona State University (ASU, Tempe, AZ) conducted a comprehensive laboratory-based research program to elucidate the mechanisms and dynamics of mine burial in noncohesive sediments under shoaling waves on coastal slopes. This paper presents a brief description of this program as well as salient observations and quantitative parameterizations for scour, ripples, and burial that resulted from it (which constitute the ASU mine burial model). Improvements to mine burial predictive capabilities offered by the ASU model are demonstrated by evaluating it vis-a-vis the (legacy) mine burial models that are in common use [Defense Research Agency mine burial environment (DRAMBUIE), Industrie Anlagen Bau Gesellschaft (NBURY, Munchen, Germany), and wave-induced spreadsheet prediction (WISSP)]. To this end, both the legacy and ASU models are discussed briefly and compared with field experimental data obtained during the 2003 Indian Rocks Beach (IRB, FL) experiment. The scour/burial data collected during the IRB campaign, using instrumented mines and diver observations, show that the predictions of the mostly laboratory-based ASU model agree satisfactorily with field observations, both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Guest Editorial Special Issue on Mine Burial Processes

The 23 papers in this special issue focus on mine burial processes. The special issues begins with the guest editors providing a short history and introduction, followed by five papers that describe field and laboratory experiments, models, and sediment strength measurement related to mine burial by impact. The next nine papers describe instrumentation, field measurements, and modeling of mine burial by wave-induced scour. The next three papers describe laboratory experiments, simulations, and modeling of wave- and current induced scour, followed by three papers relating measurements, simulations, and modeling of sediment transport. The last two papers describe and provide examples of probabilistic MBPs systems intended for operational use.

High-Resolution Mapping of Mines and Ripples at the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory

High-resolution multibeam sonar and state-of-the-art data processing and visualization techniques have been used to quantify the evolution of seafloor morphology and the degree of burial of instrumented mines and mine-shapes as part of the U.S. Office of Naval Research (ONR, Arlington, VA) mine burial experiment at the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO, Edgartown, MA). Four surveys were conducted over two years at the experiment site with a 455-kHz, Reson 8125 dynamically focused multibeam sonar. The region is characterized by shore-perpendicular alternating zones of coarse-grained sand with 5-25-cm-high, wave orbital-scale ripples, and zones of finer grained sands with smaller (2-5-cm-high) anorbital ripples and, on occasion, medium scale 10-20-cm-high, chaotic or hummocky bedforms. The boundaries between the zones appear to respond over periods of days to months to the predominant wave direction and energy. Smoothing and small shifts of the boundaries to the northeast take place during fair-weather wave conditions while erosion (scalloping of the boundary) and shifts to the north-northwest occur during storm conditions. The multibeam sonar was also able to resolve changes in the orientation and height of fields of ripples that were directly related to the differences in the prevailing wave direction and energy. The alignment of the small scale bedforms with the prevailing wave conditions appears to occur rapidly (on the order of hours or days) when the wave conditions exceed the threshold of sediment motion (most of the time for the fine sands) and particularly during moderate storm conditions. During storm events, erosional ldquowindowsrdquo to the coarse layer below appear in the fine-grained sands. These ldquowindowrdquo features are oriented parallel to the prevailing wave direction and reveal orbital-scale ripples that are oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wave direction. The resolution of the multibeam sonar combined with 3-D visualization techniques provided realistic looking images of both instrumented and noninstrumented mines and mine-like objects (including bomb, Manta, and Rockan shapes) that were dimensionally correct and enabled unambiguous identification of the mine type. In two of the surveys (October and December 2004), the mines in the fine-grained sands scoured into local pits but were still perfectly visible and identifiable with the multibeam sonar. In the April 2004 survey, the mines were not visible and apparently were completely buried. In the coarse-grained sand zone, the mines were extremely difficult to detect after initial scour burial as the mines bury until they present the same hydrodynamic roughness as the orbital-scale bedforms and thus blend into the ambient ripple field. Given the relatively large, 3-D, spatial coverage of the multibeam sonar along with its ability to measure the depth of the seafloor and the depth and dimensions of the mine, it is possible to measure directly, the burial by depth and burial by surface area of the mines. The 3-D nature of the multibeam sonar data also allows the direct determination of the volume of material removed from a scour pit.

Mine Burial Experiments at the Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory

Several experiments to measure postimpact burial of seafloor mines by scour and fill have been conducted near the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Martha's Vineyard Coastal Observatory (MVCO, Edgartown, MA). The sedimentary environment at MVCO consists of a series of rippled scour depressions (RSDs), which are large scale bedforms with alternating areas of coarse and fine sand. This allows simultaneous mine burial experiments in both coarse and fine sand under almost identical hydrodynamic forcing conditions. Two preliminary sets of mine scour burial experiments were conducted during winters 2001-2002 in fine sand and 2002-2003 in coarse sand with a single optically instrumented mine in the field of view of a rotary sidescan sonar. From October 2003 to April of 2004, ten instrumented mines were deployed along with several sonar systems to image mine behavior and to characterize bedform and oceanographic processes. In fine sand, the sonar imagery of the mines revealed that large scour pits form around the mines during energetic wave events. Mines fell into their own scour pits, aligned with the dominant wave crests and became level with the ambient seafloor after several energetic wave events. In quiescent periods, after the energetic wave events, the scour pits episodically infilled with mud. After several scour and infilling events, the scour pits were completely filled and a layer of fine sand covered both the mines and the scour pits, leaving no visible evidence of the mines. In the coarse sand, mines were observed to bury until the exposed height above the ripple crests was approximately the same as the large wave orbital ripple height (wavelengths of 50-125 cm and heights of 10-20 cm). A hypothesis for the physical mechanism responsible for this partial burial in the presence of large bedforms is that the mines bury until they present roughly the same hydrodynamic roughness as the orbital-scale bedforms present in coarse sand.

Seafloor Properties From Penetrometer Tests

Quasi-static and freely falling dynamic penetrometers are currently in extensive use for measuring the mechanical properties of sediments composing the littoral seafloor. Sediments in this zone are often inhomogeneous both laterally and with depth so that it is difficult to predict burial of mines and other objects when relying on models that assume uniform, homogeneous sediment. The results of penetrometer tests discussed in this paper show that there can be a wide spread in the penetration resistance that is measured depending on the degree of sediment inhomogeneity and the rate of penetration. Moreover, the dilative response of granular strata appears to further complicate matters because of the sudden, large changes in shear strength that can occur. As a result, mine burial models currently in use, which often rely on simple strain-rate factors and shear strength determined from experiments utilizing uniform, reconstituted sediment, do not appear to be adequate to handle real in situ conditions in many cases. The objective of this paper is to obtain a better understanding of in situ properties and how they may be incorporated into various burial models.

Exercising a Deterministic Mine Burial Prediction System for Impact and Scour Burial Using Operational Data Sets

This paper presents results and analysis from exercising an aquatic mine burial prediction (MBP) system based on deterministic models to simulate impact and scour burial experiments using operational or operational-like inputs. Based on nonparametric hypothesis testing of simulation results with empirical data, the statistics generated from simulations of impact burial appear to provide useful predictions and uncertainty estimates when the simulations account for geotechnical variations. For scour burial, the use of the simulating waves nearshore model to drive a scour model is examined. Model predictions qualitatively followed empirical burial trends, with variations in waveheight prediction appearing to be a more significant factor in determining the accuracy of the scour burial prediction than uncertainty in grain size. Overall, the tests provide encouragement for the use of new MBP models to provide reasonable predictions of burial from operational input data.

Multibeam Observations of Mine Burial Near Clearwater, FL, Including Comparisons to Predictions of Wave-Induced Burial

A Kongsberg Simrad EM 3000 multibeam sonar (Kongsberg Simrad, Kongsberg, Norway) was used to conduct a set of six repeat high-resolution bathymetric surveys west of Indian Rocks Beach (IRB), just to the south of Clearwater, FL, between January and March 2003, to observe in situ scour and burial of instrumented inert mines and mine-like cylinders. Three closely located study sites were chosen: two fine-sand sites, a shallow one located in 13 m of water depth and a deep site located in 14 m of water depth; and a coarse-sand site in 13 m. Results from these surveys indicate that mines deployed in fine sand are nearly buried within two months of deployment (i.e., they sunk 74.5% or more below the ambient seafloor depth). Mines deployed in coarse sand showed a lesser amount of scour, burying until they present roughly the same hydrodynamic roughness as the surrounding rippled bedforms. These data were also used to test the validity of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS, Gloucester Point, VA) 2-D burial model. The model worked well in areas of fine sand, sufficiently predicting burial over the course of the experiment. In the area of coarse sand, the model greatly overpredicted the amount of burial. This is believed to be due to the presence of rippled bedforms around the mines, which affect local bottom morphodynamics and are not accounted for in the model, an issue currently being addressed by the modelers. This paper focuses specifically on two instrumented mines: an acoustic mine located in fine sand and an optical instrumented mine located in coarse sand.

In situ measurement of geoacoustic sediment properties: An example from the ONR Mine Burial Program, Martha’s Vineyard Coastal Observatory

In support of the Office of Naval Research’s Mine Burial Program (MBP), in situ acoustic and resistivity measurements were obtained using ISSAP, a device developed and built by the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. One of the field areas selected for the MBP experiments is the WHOI coastal observatory based off Martha’s Vineyard. This area is an active natural laboratory that will provide an ideal environment for testing and observing mine migration and burial patterns due to temporal seabed processes. Seawater and surficial sediment measurements of compressional wave sound speed, attenuation, and resistivity were obtained at 87 stations. The ISSAP instrument used four transducer probes arranged in a square pattern giving acoustic path lengths of 30 and 20 cm with a maximum insertion depth of 15 cm. Transducers operated at a frequency of 65 kHz. The received acoustic signal was sampled at a frequency of 5 MHz. A measurement cycle was completed by transmitting 10 pulses on each of the five paths and repeating three times for a total 150 measurements. Resistivity measurements were obtained from two probes mounted on ISSAP following completion of the acoustic measurements. [Research supported by ONR Grant Nos. N00014-00-1-0821 and N00014-02-1-0138.]