Bathymetry based on data recorded during M72-1 between 07.02.2007 and 20.02.2007 in the Black Sea. The main focus of the cruise were gas vents and seeps in the north-western Black Sea below 700 m water depth which is the zone of gas hydrate stability. The main target area was the deep Dnepr Canyon west of the Crimea Peninsula where previous investigations had indicated the occurrence of gas seepage.

Detailed description:During the cruise M72-1 the Kongsberg EM710 shallow multi-beam echo-sounder was used. The EM710 uses a nominal sounding frequency of 70-100 kHz. 256 beams with a 1°/1° footprint are formed for each ping while the seafloor is detected using amplitude and phase information for each beam sounding. For further information consult http://epic.awi.de/26726/1/Kon2007b.pdf. The EM710 was used mainly in order to detect, localize and quantify methane fluxes at cold seeps in three major investigated areas. Responsible person during this cruise / PI: Aneta Nikolovska (aneta.nikolovska@atlas-elektronik.com). Description of data processing:Postprocessing and products were conducted by the Seafloor-Imaging group of MARUM, responsible person: Paul Wintersteller (seafloor-imaging@marum.de). The open source software MB-system (Caress, D.W., and D.N. Chayes, MB-System Version 5, Open source software distributed from the MBARI and L-DEO web sites, 2000-2012.) was utilized for this purpose. A tide correction was applied, based on the Oregon State University (OSU) tidal prediction software (OTPS) that is retrievable through MB-System. In general, there is a tide differences of less than 20 cm in the Black Sea. Further roll, pitch, heave and sound velocity corrections were not applied for the M72-1 dataBathymetric data has been manually cleaned for existing artefacts with mbeditviz. NetCDF (GMT) grids of the product and the statistics were created using mbgrid. Quality assurance was furthermore proven by visual and statistical comparison of crossing survey-lines from different cruises throughout the Black Sea. No total propagated uncertainty (TPU) has been calculated to gather vertical or horizontal accuracy. The currently published bathymetric grid of the cruise has a resolution of 125 m. A higher resolution is, at least partly, achievable.