News
As you may remember, in the June issue of Hydro international (Hydro international , June 2002, Volume 7, Number 5) we informed you concerning the summer 2002 joint stock company ‘Lenmorniiproekt’, St. Petersburg, Russia. This expedition aimed to support work done under the programme ‘Polarnet-Project’ for laying an optical fibre link for communication between continents. The expedition carried out hydrographic investigations within the half of the route connecting the Bering Strait and the Norwegian border.
The head of the expedition and project senior engineer Dr V. Raskatov has recently advised us of the completion of the hydrographic investigations along the whole route. This took place over the period 21st July - 21st September 2003. This was for the first time in the history of the world hydrography that hydrographic surveys of the bottom relief and sea ground had been carried out by a surface vessel in solid ice fields of 1.5 to 4 metres thick.
The following equipment was used in carrying out the investigations. Firstly, an integrated bottom relief and sea ground survey system developed in the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (under the leadership of Dr V. Kayevitser) in co-operation with Russian hydrographers. In addition, a multi-beam sonar from Reson, the satellite navigation system DGPS and a system for processing of source data acquired in the course of survey which was designed with the contribution of the HSR members Dr V. Raskatov, Dr V. Kayevitser, Dr V. Myatelkov, Dr Yu. Yushkov and specialists: A. Stepanov, V. Rozmanov, I. Smolyaninov and others. The equipment was mounted aboard the ice-class vessel Kola, of 20,000 tons displacement.
The underwater part of the hull of the vessel was equipped with appropriate safety facilities to protect the arrays of hydro-acoustic instruments. The chief co-ordinator of the investigations was Dr Oleg Malov.
While surveying, Kola followed in the wake of the atomic-powered icebreaker Sovetskiy Sojuz (‘The Soviet Union’) that broke a navigable channel in the solid ice. Four legs were made in all. They were along the parallel 78° between the meridians of Kirov Island and Wrangel Island: two legs were carried out from West to East, and the other two were made in the opposite direction, from East to West. The investigations resulted in the continuous coverage of a zone of the Arctic Ocean bottom approximately 1km wide.

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Hydrographic Society Russia
Att. Viktor Rybine
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Saint-Petersburg 199106
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