ALBERT

Description: Multibeam bathymetry raw data using the ship's own Kongsberg (Simrad) EM 1002 multibeam_echosounder was not continuously recorded during RV MARIA S. MERIAN cruise MSM30. Data was recorded on 16 days between 2013-07-21 and 2013-08-13. This dataset contains a survey in the North Atlantic Ocean south of Svalbard. The approximate average depth of the entire dataset is around 300m. The data are archived at the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie, BSH) and provided to PANGAEA database for data curation and publication. Ancillary sound velocity profiles (SVP) files from the cruise are archived at the BSH, thus SVP files are added to this dataset. Also data analysis of the multibeam raw data revealed that SVP has been changed during the survey. This publication is conducted within the efforts of the German Marine Research Alliance in the core area 'Data management and Digitalization' (Deutsche Allianz Meeresforschung, DAM). Data are unprocessed and therefore contains incorrect depth measurements (artifacts) without further processing. Note that refraction errors can be expected due to the lack of proper SVP. Overall, it appears that the data quality is rather good since the gridded hillshade data showed relatively few obstacles. The gridded data show many elongated structures on the seafloor. The ocean surface is covered with iceberg scours. Data can be processed e.g. with the open source software package MB-System (Caress, D. W., and D. N. Chayes, MB-System: Mapping the Seafloor, http://www.mbari.org/products/research-software/mb-system/, 2022).