Satellite images showed undersea mountain hit by U.S. sub

[question everything]

Satellite images showed undersea mountain hit by U.S. sub

By Christopher Drew
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE

January 24, 2005

Satellite images of the area where a nuclear submarine grounded two weeks ago clearly show a wedge-shaped undersea mountain that stretches across more than a mile of a desolate expanse of the South Pacific.

Defense officials have said the mountain, which rises within 100 feet of the surface, was not on the navigation charts that the Navy uses. One sailor was killed and 60 were injured when the submarine, the San Francisco, smashed into the mountain, or a reef jutting out from it, at high speed Jan. 8.

The satellite images, taken in 1999 and early 2004, suggest the mountain is part of a larger range of undersea volcanoes and reefs. And they show it sits more than three miles to the northwest of the nearest possible hazard on the charts.

More..

Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050124/news_1n24sub.html

[RobertSeattle]

1. Didn't know satelittes could "look" 100 feet into the ocean - interesting

We really need to start a war on undersea mountains.

[frankly_fedup2]

2. Did their explanation for this sound like they believe that . . ..

possibly this land mass moved due to the tsunami? After all, we lost 40 seconds out of a 24-hour day due to the "jolt" the Earth in its axis took?

I do not understand why a nuclear sub does not use another kind of radar. If sonar makes too much noise, I'm sure there is something else they can come up with. Their are other types of radar like Viper and Doppler. Of course, they use them for the weather, but wonder if they knows but it just doesn't sound like common sense to me. Guess one needs to be a nuclear sub physicist to figure this one out.

Just seems to me that the story is not complete and has been doctored a bit.

[reprobate]

3. Radar doesn't work under water. It's radio waves. No penetration.

[Submariner]

4. Those underwater mounds must hate our freedom

FYI: Submarines cruise following charts and using passive sonar (just listening). If the sub is running slow and quiet enough, unlike the 30 knot speed of the SF, then many times biologics will reveal and underwater mound or mountain. The typical sound is the snapping sound of shrimp that gather around mounds. When traveling fast the sounds are obviously not apparent.

Active sonar ((pinging)) would have revealed the presence of the mountain, but active sonar would also have given away the position of the sub which defeats the purpose of the stealth mode of the boat.

Radar is only used on the surface and does not operate underwater. This sub collision is just one of those things that happens when you trust that your bathymetric charts are accurate while pissing along at 30 knots only to find out the charts are outdated and inaccurate. **it happens..

Revised maps will prevent further problems of this nature.

[Torque67]

5. Here's some information about sonar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar

It's pretty interesting, and was readable by a non-nuclear-sub-physicist :)

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Nothing to do with the tsunami

This was in a different ocean, and we did not 'lose 40 seconds'. The North Pole shifted about an inch, and shortened the day by less than 3 microseconds, NASA calculate (they think they may be able to measure it, but it's too soon to be able to measure something so small now). A microsecond is a millionth of a second.

[evolvenow]

7. Classified? But here is the location...look...why was this sub there?

http://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mapquest.com%2Fmaps%2Flatlong.adp


Latitude: 7° 45 Min.1 Sec.
Longitude: 147° 12 Min. 6 Sec.:



The exact location of the crash remains classified. But the undersea mountain shows up on the satellite images at a latitude of 7 degrees, 45.1 minutes north and a longitude of 147 degrees, 12.6 minutes east.
(snip)

[grumpy old fart]

8. Kool Link

Thanks. First time I've used Mapquest for such a thing. And, why wouldn't we be there?

[yinkaafrica]

10. That's cool

[DistantWind88]

12. why not?

[TyObe]

15. You've made a navigational error

N7 45.1' E147 12.6'
is the same as
N7 45' 6" E147 12' 36"

It's a little over 30NM east of the spot you plugged in:
N7 45' 1" E147 12' 6"


One of the fast boat squadrons is homeported in Guam.

[Roaming]

9. We probably know less about the depths of the oceans than we do about

our own solar system--truly the "last frontier" of scientific exploration.

[RedCloud]

13. Indian Ocean does not follow earth's curvature...

Has anyone else heard this? That way before the Tsunami it had a below sea level depression in it of considerable size. Can't find the info right now.

[daleo]

16. This can happen due to gravitational anomalies

There can be depressions or accumulations of water due to the variations in the earth's gravitational field, caused by differences in crustal thickness or density.

[Baclava]

11. Clearly that's not a natural formation...

Now we know where that pesky underwater UFO base has been hiding....
wonder how they move it around...

[TyObe]

14. I found a 5,000ft mountain once...

It wasn't on any of the charts. Luckily, we still had 2500fm water under the keel at when it peaked out.

A submarine almost always operates a high frequency narrow beam fathometer (I'm not aware of anytime you'd be allowed to shut it off other than tied to the pier, but I haven't done everything). Usually, if you are within say 10NM of shoalwater (any place where the sub could hit an obstacle without exceeding max op depth), the CO will station additional navigational people including a dedicated fathometer watch. Normally, it's checked a few times an hour. When you get way too close to another submarine, you'll be able to hear their fathometer.

Other ships can pick up your active sonar far past the distance it allows you to see. It's got some major drawbacks from the stealth perspective. Also, I'm not sure how well they work at All Ahead Flank. They use a high freq sonar continuously under-ice, but you're expecting obstacles there.

If you look at an offshore chart, you'll see where the surveying ships went--they're a bunch of long criss-crossing lines of soundings. Sometimes there's a couple miles between them, especially in areas that are off the great circle routes between major ports/harbors.

They went from well over 30kts to 4kts instantaneously. There's only 3 people that wear seatbelts--the diving officer and the two helms/planesmen. Everyone else took a tumble.

Ty