This is a statistical study of abyssal hill morphology on the East Pacific Rise at 7.7 to 9.3S. Two days of ship time will be added to a cruise to gather abyssal hill bathymetric and sub-bathymetric data along flow lines west of the ridge axis. The data will be analyzed to investigate correlations between the variation in abyssal hill characteristics and the variation in morphology and associated geophysical processes. The Principal Investigator has generated a two-dimensional model for seafloor characterization and a method for estimating model parameters from multibeam bathymetric data. The model parameters provide quantitative physical information regarding abyssal hills, describing their rms height, characteristic width and length, aspect ratio.asimuth of lineation, and fractral height, dimension.
