Active Tectonics: Data Acquisition and Analysis

The explosion in GIS usage in marine disciplines such as active tectonics has revolutionised our ability to visualise, analyse, and interpret seafloor environments using multiple datasets and a much more “holistic” view of geologic/geophysical data than previously available. Driven by the growing capabilities of desktop workstations, we can now realistically expect to display, merge, and fly through datasets that were beyond the capabilities of all but a few specialised laboratories just a few years ago. This paper presents a brief review of some of the data gathering instrumentation available for active tectonics research, and discusses techniques for processing, combining, visualising and analysing these data in the context of active tectonics. The paper concludes with some examples of active submarine tectonic research.