Quinault Canyon Current Meter Moorings: Ocean Current Components and Temperature

The University of Washington maintained five current meter moorings (QC811-QC815) in and around Quinault Canyon on the U.S. West Coast. Aanderaa instruments sampled speed, direction, and temperature at 20-minute intervals, with data edited for spurious values, filtered, and resolved into u and v components. Results from this project are published in key oceanographic studies on shelf-slope circulation and sedimentation.

Use Cases

• Analyzing shelf and slope circulation patterns based on filtered current velocity components.
• Studying contemporary sedimentation processes using high-temporal-resolution current data.
• Modeling suspended particle movement in and around an active submarine canyon.
• Validating regional oceanographic models with in-situ current and temperature observations.

Strengths

• Data underwent quality control, including editing for spurious values and application of a 5-point binomial filter.
• Provides a focused time series from five distinct mooring locations within a specific study area.
• Findings are directly linked to multiple peer-reviewed publications, providing context and validation.

Limitations

• Key metadata is missing or conflicting: column names are unknown, and last updated dates conflict between 1982 and 2026.
• Dataset scale (size, row count) is unspecified across all sources.
• License and author information is not provided.

Provenance

Source

University of Washington (maintained moorings), NOAA NCEI (hosting organization)

Collection Method

Data collected from Aanderaa current meter instruments deployed on moorings.

Time Range

1981-10-02 to 1982-01-19

Freshness

2026-04-01 15:11:43.798318

Geography

Quinault Canyon, North East Pacific Coast (Washington/Oregon)