Multibeam bathymetry raw data using the ship's own Kongsberg (Simrad) EM 120 multibeam echosounder was not continuously recorded during RV METEOR cruise M74/4. Data was recorded on 15 days between 2007-11-30 and 2007-12-14. This dataset contains a survey at the islands of the Maldives. The approximate average depth of the entire dataset is around 700m.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 not archived at the BSH, thus no SVP files are added to this dataset. However, data analysis of the multibeam raw data revealed that SVP has been changed several times 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. Overall, it appears that the data quality is rather good to moderate since the gridded hillshade data showed relatively few obstacles. It appears, that the Kongsberg EM 710 multibeam echosounder was simultaneously running during data acquisition since the coverage is nearly the same (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.942458). However this did not significantly affecting data quality (nevertheless, based on the data, whether a direct interference between both system exists is unknown).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).

These data should not be used for navigational purposes.Data publishing was realized by Daniel Damaske, MARUM - Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (University Bremen).