Report on Cuba's New Digital Bathymetric Model Approved

Havana, Jul 12 (ACN) The Institute of Geology and Paleontology (IGP), Cuba's Geological Service, announced the approval of the final report for the company Geocuba Estudios Marinos to conclude a new digital bathymetric model (MDB) of the country and its surroundings.

IGP had contracted the research and the control of its execution with a budget allocated to the sector by the State, said Enrique A. Castellanos Abella, Ph.D., Director of Geology of the Ministry of Energy and Mines.

“The new MDB is the basic information required for any research in the nation's marine territory and its surroundings, such as tsunami simulations, submarine landslides, biological research and climate change studies,” he remarked.

Geocuba Estudios Marinos explained that the set of data had to be compiled on the existing marine relief in the nation, which reached 1 416 617 bathymetric points, from -0.1 to -6 960.28 meters, and 2 553 isobaths (one of the contour lines that materializes a horizontal section of relief) ranging from -5 meters to -6000.

The interpolation was monitored with two control points, interpolated or not, whose mean square error was calculated for areas with high and low density of points. The MDB obtained consists of 15 000 columns by 6 250 rows for a total of 93 750 000 pixels and has a resolution of 0.0008 degrees (approximately 90 meters).

According to the same source, the depths are represented in meters from the coastline, the entire insular platform, its slope and the bathyal zone (from 200 to 2,000 meters deep) and abyssal (beyond the continental slope zone and corresponds to depths of more than 2,000 meters).

The company will periodically update this dataset and incorporate new bathymetric works as higher resolution digital bathymetric models of Cuba's main platforms continue to be implemented in our islands and cays.

In 2008, a CDM of Cuba was carried out for the Macroproject of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment, called Danger and Vulnerability Scenarios of the Cuban coastal zone associated with the rise of the mean sea level for the years 2050 and 2100.

Bathymetry, the underwater equivalent of altimetry, is the study of the "beds" or "floors" of water bodies, including the ocean, rivers, streams, and lakes.