Seafloor Pressure

Seafloor Pressure sensors measure the force on the seafloor exerted by the weight of the overlying water and atmosphere. Real-time pressure measurements are of great importance because lunar tides, storms, and tsunamis strongly impact pressures at the seafloor and the flow of fluids into and out of the oceanic crust. The Sea-Bird SBE 26plus uses an internal quartz transducer (a quartz crystal resonator whose frequency of oscillation varies with pressure induced stress) to measure absolute pressure: the pressure of the water column (hydrostatic pressure) plus the current atmospheric pressure at the sea surface (SBE 26plus manual & Paroscientific Digiquartz website). Seafloor pressure is directly measured by the SBE 26plus and is either output as ASCII (in real-time mode), or calculated from the raw hexadecimal data downloaded from the instrument after it is recovered.

The RBR quartz³ QPlus and quartz³ BPR were selected to replace the obsolete Sea-Bird instrument.  The RBR instruments also uses the Digiquartz sensor.  

(some text courtesy of Interactive Oceans)

Data Products

This instrument measures the following data products. Select a data product's name to learn more.

The algorithm code used to generate data products for this instrument is also available in the ion-functions GitHub repository.

Instrument Models & Deployed Locations

The OOI includes the following instrument makes and models for this instrument type. Follow the links below to find out where in the OOI this instrument has been deployed. You'll also find quick links for each instrument to Data Explorer, where you can plot and access data.