Survey, 2018-01-01, South Atlantic

Patos Lagoon, sediment-carrying coastal plume

A three-day field survey at the Patos Lagoon mouth producing 79,387 simultaneous determinations of suspended matter and organic content, revealing the fine internal structure and variability of a sediment-carrying coastal plume. Reported in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 2018.

Published figures

Interpolated fields from the campaign, reproduced as issued. Plate titles carry the LIFL-9 under its original designation, UFL-9.

Plume composite

Interpolated chlorophyll a field mapped along the lidar track, Patos Lagoon mouth, Brazil, Plume composite
Fig. 1Chlorophyll a
Interpolated total organic carbon field mapped along the lidar track, Patos Lagoon mouth, Brazil, Plume composite
Fig. 2TOC
Interpolated total suspended solids field mapped along the lidar track, Patos Lagoon mouth, Brazil, Plume composite
Fig. 3TSS

2016 campaign

Interpolated chlorophyll a field mapped along the lidar track, Patos Lagoon mouth, Brazil, 2016 campaign
Fig. 4Chlorophyll a
Interpolated total organic carbon field mapped along the lidar track, Patos Lagoon mouth, Brazil, 2016 campaign
Fig. 5TOC
Interpolated total suspended solids field mapped along the lidar track, Patos Lagoon mouth, Brazil, 2016 campaign
Fig. 6TSS
Patos LagoonSouth Atlantic
2 km
● Patos Lagoon, 2016-11-30 → 2016-12-0263,616 measurements IDW interpolation, 600 samples
Chl-a0.896.47µg/L
CDOM0.140.61a.u.
TSS0.8623.2mg/L

Fig. 7 Campaign scan. 63,616 lidar returns along the ship track, switchable across Chl-a, CDOM, TSS. Field view interpolates the channel across the surveyed water from the same measurements (inverse-distance weighting). Shoreline: Natural Earth.

At the mouth of Patos Lagoon on the southern Brazilian coast, one of the largest coastal lagoons in the world, a three-day field survey produced 79,387 simultaneous determinations of suspended matter and organic content. That density of measurement resolved the fine internal structure and short-term variability of a sediment-carrying coastal plume, detail that point sampling and satellite imagery cannot reach.

The campaign, conducted with collaborators including Brazil’s Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG), was published in Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science (2018).