High Resolution Marine Magnetic Survey of Shallow Water Littoral Area

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present a system developed for detection andaccurate mapping of ferro-metallic objects buried below the seabed in shallow waters. Thesystem comprises a precise magnetic gradiometer and navigation subsystem, both installedon a non-magnetic catamaran towed by a low-magnetic interfering boat. In addition wepresent the results of a marine survey of a near-shore area in the vicinity of Atlit, a townsituated on the Mediterranean coast of Israel, about 15 km south of Haifa. The primarypurpose of the survey was to search for a Harvard airplane that crashed into the sea in 1960.A magnetic map of the survey area (3.5 km² on a 0.5 m grid) was created revealing theanomalies at sub-meter accuracy. For each investigated target location a correspondingferro-metallic item was dug out, one of which turned to be very similar to a part of thecrashed airplane. The accuracy of location was confirmed by matching the position of theactual dug artifacts with the magnetic map within a range of ± 1 m, in a water depth of 9 m.