NCCOS Caribbean Fishery Acoustic Assessment: Fish Density Data Collection from NOAA Ship Nancy Foster, from 2008-03-26 to 2014-05-31 (NCEI Accession 0156395)

These data sets show acoustically detected fish densities throughout the Caribbean ocean. NOAA/NCCOS collected these data sets to help characterize broad-scale fish abundance, biomass, and understand temporal behavior.

Acoustic data was collected aboard NOAA Ship Nancy Foster using 120-7C splitbeam transducer during cruise # NF08-01, NF09-01, NF10-03, NF11-01, NF12-01, NF13-01, and NF14-01. The hull mounted Simrad 120-7C transducer was calibrated to factory standards and environmental parameters where applied during acquisition.

Data was collected using 128 microsecond pulse length and had a varied ping rate due to triggering from Reson 7125 multibeam system. The resulting data layers show geo-referenced fish densities per 100 square meter intervals. The fish densities have been divided into three size classes, small fish (<11cm), medium fish (11cm-29cm), and large fish (>29cm).