Multibeam Water Column Data

NOAA collects and uses multibeam sonar data for a variety of mapping requirements. NGDC, as the US national archive for multibeam bathymetric data, manages over 15 million nautical miles of ship tracklines data from sources worldwide. In 2011 NGDC initiated a new archive for high resolution data collected with scientific multibeam echo sounders capable of mapping the water column. The scientific multibeam echo sounder can yield assessments of the underwater physical and biological characteristics, including mapping spatial distribution of oil and gas, fish, plankton, and marine mammals. NGDC is working with scientists at NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Joint Hydrographic Center to incorporate scientific multibeam echo sounder water column sonar data into the NOAA long-term archive.

Figure 1. Data Collected with the Simrad ME70 installed on the NOAA FSV Oscar Dyson in the Shelikof Strait (Alaska) in March, 2008. The backscattered signal above the bottom is walleye pollack. Note that only every 5th ping is shown. credit: Center for Coastal & Ocean mapping / Joint Hydrographic Center.

NGDC provides access to these data via an interactive map (ArcGIS) Web interface. Data are downloadable for free, but may require the requestor to provide an external hard drive. See the "Interactive Map Interface" link at left.

Please contact NGDC (below) if you have questions concerning these data or new multibeam water column data you are interested in archiving for public access. When submitting data, you will be asked to provide metadata for each survey.