The 50th UNB-OMB/UNH-CCOM Multibeam Sonar Training Course, co-hosted by the Norwegian Hydrographic Service, will be held from 16 to 21 March 2009 at the Victoria Hotel, Stavanger (Norway) and remains the only course of its type in Europe.
The Multibeam Course is a 36-lecture, 6-day course primarily designed to provide a theoretical and practical background in marine multi-beam survey technology and techniques. The information is tailored for those using marine multibeam survey systems in both the traditional hydrographic survey field (for safety of navigation and nautical charting) as well as non-traditional ocean survey fields (such as continental shelf boundary delimitation, offshore engineering, harbourdredging, fisheries habitat, route survey and scientific research fields).
Members of the US Geological Survey were filmed while out on the Missouri River at Williston, North Dakota, USA, performing a hydrographic survey to monitor the state of riverbed erosion. They were using a multibeam echo sounder which transmits sound energy and analyses the return signal (echo) that has bounced off the riverbed or other objects. Multibeam sonars emit sound waves from directly beneath a ship's hull to produce fan-shaped coverage of the riverbed.
