Where does this come from, and can I check it?

Multibeam sonar measures the echo of hundreds of beams at once. The figure is taken from NOAA, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

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Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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Seabed depth is mapped by timing sound pulses

Multibeam sonar measures the echo of hundreds of beams at once A survey ship sends out a fan of sound pulses and times the return of each echo, converting travel time to distance using the local speed of sound, about 1,500 metres per second in seawater. Because sound travels faster in warm, salty, high pressure water, surveys also measure temperature and salinity with depth. Satellite altimetry fills the gaps between ship tracks by sensing bumps in sea surface height. It sits in Mondo's records & extremes collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

NOAA

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Tags: sonar, oceans, mapping

Seabed depth is mapped by timing sound pulses: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: Multibeam sonar measures the echo of hundreds of beams at once. The figure is taken from NOAA, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a records & extremes fact?: Yes. It sits on the Records & Extremes shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.