Charting the bathymetry of Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Abstract

The Federal Republic of Germany has carried out several marine research expeditions including multibeam surveys by the research vessel Polarstern in the southern Atlantic Ocean. Since the bathymetry of the Weddell Sea, Antarctica, is insufficiently known, the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) is preparing bathymetric maps for this region.

One project is the production of the series named “AWI Bathymetric Charts of the Weddell Sea (AWI BCWS).’’ These are several computer based bathymetric charts in 1:1,000,000, following the index of the GEBCO Ocean Plotting Sheet.

The Weddell Sea region is inhomogeneously covered by data of different source, type, and quality. The data have to be checked for errors of position determination and depth measurement. Examples are given for some aspects on data validation. The depth data have to be integrated, compiled and compared with other non‐bathxmetric information for mapping, e.g., gravity anomalies.

Keywords:

• accuracy
• bathymetry
• contouring
• digital terrain model
• GEBCO
• mapping
• morphology
• position
• seafloor
• Weddell Sea