As is customary in early June, public officials are now busy issuing communities up and down the eastern seaboard and in and around the Gulf of Mexico with guidance on how to prepare for severe weather events—June 1 marks the official start to the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season.
With Atlantic hurricane season officially underway, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is forecasting another busy year. Experts put the probability of an “above-normal” storm season at 60%; the chances of a “below-normal” season at a rather discouraging 10%. The consensus, however, is that storm activity is unlikely to rival the historic level seen in 2020.
Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) are becoming the tool of choice to gather erosion vs. deposition data, slumping data, and gravitational failure data by marine coastal surveyors. Why? Because ASVs provide greater efficiency and automated precision compared to traditional crewed efforts.
John Morgan, President of Morgan & Eklund (M&E), passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on the morning of February 11, 2020. John was broadly recognized and admired as a hydrographic surveying expert, who supported FSBPA for his entire 42-year career in Florida. Beyond John’s family, John had many friends and colleagues throughout Florida’s professional coastal community. Those relationships were established over his professional career that began in 1978 and that focused on survey support of beach restoration.
The CDC recently suggested that cruise ships could be welcoming guests back to the high seas as soon as July, after releasing a new phase of the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order on April 2, 2021. The cruise industry has been one of the hardest hit by the global pandemic, so some sort of return to normalcy—albeit with the requirement of facemasks and assurances that 95 percent of the passengers and 98 percent of the crew have to be fully vaccinated—will come as timely relief to anchored companies like Norwegian and Royal Caribbean.
Morgan & Eklund, Inc (M&E), a hydrographic survey company specializing in nearshore and specialized surveys for ports, harbors, and infrastructure, announced the successful deployment of its new Autonomous Survey Vessel (ASV) service to obtain high resolution multibeam bathymetric data to map and monitor sand and aggregate mining pits. Central Florida is home to vast resources of high-grade sand deposits that is used for beach nourishment and golf course operations throughout the state of Florida.
Morgan & Eklund, Inc (M&E), a sister company of CSA Ocean Sciences Inc., is a hydrographic survey company specializing in coastal nearshore mapping of ports, harbors, and infrastructure. M&E today announced the successful completion of a multibeam and side-scan sonar survey to map and monitor an artificial reef offshore Fort Pierce along the Treasure Coast of eastern Florida. A post-construction survey was completed entirely using a SeaRobotics (SR) “Surveyor Class” autonomous surface vessel (ASV). The objective of the survey was to verify seafloor conditions and accurate placement of artificial reefs.