McKim & Creed maintains a fleet of vessels that are equipped with the latest hydrographic technologies, including:
Magnetometer, which measures magnetic fields in nanoteslas (or gammas). Sudden variations of the magnetic field indicate the presence of ferrous metal. Magnetometer surveys are used to help locate underwater metal objects such as pipelines, cables, UXO, lost anchors or cutter heads, etc.
MoDaC Mobile Data Collection®, McKim & Creed’s mobile data collection system that collects 360º survey-grade mobile LiDAR data from a survey vessel in motion. MoDaC can collect up to 400,000 points per second, recording dense, highly accurate data of waterfront structures, river banks, bulkheads, docks, piling fields and gravel bars. Data collected from mobile scanning and multibeam can be merged to provide 100 percent 3D data sets of project areas above and below the water surface.
Multibeam, which is used to secure 100 percent sonar coverage of water body beds, essentially imaging the bottom. Hydrographic surveyors can collect 480 times the amount of data gathered with a singlebeam system. This technology can be applied to such projects as existing conditions surveys, pre- and post-dredges, monitoring bridge scour, underwater obstruction mapping and marine construction monitoring.
RTK GPS technology, which can cut costs while providing the accuracy needed for better planning and design documents. McKim & Creed’s onboard RTK GPS systems provide a real-time Z-positioning component to each and every sounding. This eliminates data errors caused by heave, settlement, squat, remote tide heave and draft, and reduces many post-processing requirements.
Sidescan sonar, which can provide broad-scale views of the features in the water column or on the bottom. This technology can be used for maritime archaeology surveys and search surveys, to detect and identify underwater objects and bathymetric features, and for environmental studies.
Sub-bottom profiling systems, which can provide information about subsurface sediment structure, and can be used to locate and measure dredged material deposits, and identify buried objects.
In addition, McKim & Creed’s equipment includes:
- Singlebeam (dual frequency)
- DGPS
- IMU (inertial measurement unit)
- Velocity profilers
- GPS gyro
- Specifically engineered and dedicated computer acquisition system
- Toughbook laptops
- Bar checks
- Miscellaneous sampling devices
