MGL1111shadeutm.tif: Multibeam bathymetry data collected by the U.S. Geological Survey in the Bering Sea in 2011 during cruise MGL1111, 100-meter gridded shaded bathymetric relief in GeoTIFF format

Multibeam bathymetry and backscatter data were collected using a 12 kHz Kongsberg Simrad EM-122 multibeam echosounder and SIS (v3.8.2) acquisition software. The system consists of two hull-mounted transducer arrays, a transmit unit (150 deg. x 1 deg.) located along the ship centerline, and a receive unit (1 deg. x 30 deg.) that is abaft and oriented athwart-ships. The transducer pod is tilted 4 degrees towards the bow to reduce noise from cavitation and bubbles. The system forms a swath of 288 beams that produce an across-track profile of 432 soundings. The SIS software processes range/angle data from each ping during acquisition, merging position, inertial-motion, and sound-velocity data to derive a solution for vessel motion and raybending, and calculate sounding depths and positions. Sound velocity information entered into SIS was obtained from the Applied Micro Systems Micro SV mounted on the transducer pod and 52 XBT profiles. XBT profiles were extended to 12 km depth with data generated by the unix program 'mblevitus', a module of the multibeam processing package MB-System (Caress and Chayes, 2006). Average water column salinity of 34.4 ppt was determined by extrapolating data from XCDT casts. Multibeam data were collected nearly continuously throughout the cruise, effectively mapping the seafloor along the course of the ship's track. Beam angle was set at 70 on each side throughout the program and swath widths were generally between 3 and 4 times water depth. SIS logged bathymetry and backscatter solutions to the Simrad '.all' format for archival purposes.

CARIS processing for MGL1111: A new CARIS HIPS project (ver. 7.1) was created with projection information set to Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) Zone 60N, WGS84. Each Simrad EM122 data file (*.all) was imported to the new CARIS project using the Import/Conversion Wizard. A 100 meter resolution Bathymetric and Statistical Error (BASE) Surface was created and new files were added to the surface each Julian day. With the addition of new files, the BASE surface was reviewed for any inconsistencies or data anomalies. Navigation was edited as needed using the navigation editor tool in CARIS. Filters were applied to each line including beam to beam slopes and across track angle. The CARIS "surface filter" was applied to the data using the two standard deviation option. Swath data were also edited manually to remove obviously outlying soundings.

The 100 meter CARIS HIPS BASE surface for MGL1111 was exported from CARIS as a Bathymetric Attributed Grid (BAG) file. The resulting BAG file was used to import the surface into IVS3D DMagic as gridded data, then the surface was saved as a Fledermaus Digital Terrain Model in the IVS3D SD format. Finally, the Fledermaus ArcGIS module was used to export the surface directly to an ESRI Binary Grid.

Generated grayshaded relief from multibeam bathymetry with Esri Hillshade tool options - azimuth 315 degrees, altitude 45 degrees, no vertical exaggeration. (fwong@usgs.gov)

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