Multibeam bathymetry raw data using the ship's own Kongsberg EM 122 multibeam echosounder was not continuously recorded during RV METEOR cruise M85/3. Data was recorded on 9 days between 2011-08-27 and 2011-09-22. This dataset contains elongated surveys mostly east and one survey line west of Iceland. The approximate average depth of the entire dataset is around 400m.
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. No ancillary sound velocity profiles (SVP) files from the cruise are archived at the BSH, thus added to this dataset. However, also data analysis of the multibeam raw data revealed that SVP has not 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. Partially some data are of poor data quality, which is commented in the parameter table. Nevertheless, it seems that the multibeam was set to a very narrow beam angle most of the time (only covering the same distance across direction relative to water depth).
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).
