Seabed digital elevation models and some possibilities of their morphometric analysis

Seabed bathymetry is an important component of marine geology and geomorphology activity, so as cartography and paleogeography, geoecology and hydroacoustics and other applied areas of research also. General seabed digital elevation model (DEM) could be the basement in the definition of "key" shelf areas for further detailed study, including sound profiling. All of them are required at the stage of industrial planning, construction and exploration, definition of geo-hazard, for the monitoring activity and also required to repel potential threats, including natural ones, etc. Developed methods are the most adequate approach for optimization of material costs, considering the large amount, sometimes huge, costs of marine field research. Simulation of seabed relief within large areas is always connected with the limit of hydrographic survey data. From the other hand, detailed knowledge of the bottom topography for software-based automatic processing is not expected in the near future and is not possible now due to technical reasons. Thus, all available geological and morphological information should be used. Our technique is based on the analysis and digitizing of the navigation charts of different scale and drawing manually additional isobaths under developed classification of seabed relief. Using the DEM it is possible to determine some series of morphometric parameters based on calculating the derivative grid models.