New compilation of the Amundsen Sea continental shelf bathymetry

Abstract

The Amundsen Sea continental shelf is one of the remotest areas of coastal Antarctica, and was relatively unexplored until the 1980s. Over the last two decades, however, oceanographic and geological interest has led to several cruises, one result of which is that there is now sufficient bathymetric data to compile a fairly detailed regional map of the Amundsen continental shelf. We have combined the available multibeam and single beam bathymetry data from this region and created a new regional bathymetric map of the Amundsen Sea continental shelf and slope. After editing the individual data sets we used a natural neighbor algorithm to interpolate between the existing data and create a grid at 5km raster resolution. The most prominent regional feature is a series of separate trough systems along the inner shelf, which are aligned with present glaciers, separated by shallower ridges, and shoaling seaward