Instrument Deployments
Deployments
Tethys uses deployment records to register information about when instruments have been deployed as well as their characteristics. Examples of characteristics that are recorded include sample rate and the number of quantization bits, description of duty cycles (if applicable), hydrophone geometry, and enough details to be able find calibration data for specific hydrophones.
PAMGuard will examine the PAMGuard database and binary Store to determine what records should be generated for your instrumentation.
Where data were collected continuously or on a regular duty cycle, PAMGuard will create a single deployment record. If data were collected on a more “ad-hoc” basis, where the instrument has been deployed multiple times or has irregular recording, PAMGuard will generate a deployment record for each period of recording.
The figure below shows an example of ad-hoc recording periods identified by PAMGuard:
Occasionally, there may be short recording periods (e.g. while you were testing kit on deck) that you do not want to export. Use the select checkbox to pick all of the rows that you wish to export, or right click on the table and “Select All.”
When one or more deployment records are selected, the “Export…” button will become available. Selecting the export button will start a dialog that asks for additional information about the deployments and then write records to Tethys.
The first page of the dialog asks for the project and geographic region which will be automatically populated if they have been previously specified. In addition, the following fields are requested:
- Cruise name - Optional name of the deployment cruise
- Site - Case-sensitive name for the deployment site, e.g. “Tanner Banks” or a letter designation “T”. This can provide a simple way to identify multiple deployments at the same general location.
- Responsible Party - A set of fields describing who was responsible for the deployment and how they may be contacted.
The next page of the dialog asks whether you would like to export a single deployment document or multiple deployments. todo: add more detail here
Finally, you are prompted to provide optional textual descriptions of:
- Objectives - What were your objectives when deploying the instrument? Example: Determine population estimates for critically endangered populations of vaquita (Phocoena sinus).
- Abstract - A textual description of the deployment. Example: A set of high frequency recorders were deployed across the northern portion of the Sea of Cortez in the historical range of the vaquita (Phocoena sinus). These recordings will support detection and density estimation efforts.
- Method - A description of the methods used. Example: Small boat deployment of bottom moored SoundTrap recorders with acoustic releases.
Press Finish to export the records. Once the document(s) have been successuflly exported, the document name associated with each recording period will be shown in the Tethys Deployment column.