Updates Status Report on the Ridge Multibeam Bathymetry

• Main Authors: Suzanne Carbotte, William Haxby, William B. F. Ryan (ldeo
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2000
• Subjects: New Access to the Database; Antarctic; Pacific; Indian; Mid-Atlantic Ridge; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.571.8861; http://www.marine-geo.org/about/docs/reports/GMRT/Carbotte_etal_2004_RMBS.pdf

T he Ridge Multibeam Bathymetry Synthesis (RidgeMBS) is acompilation of multibeam bathymetry data, digital elevationmodels, and shaded relief images of the seafloor from theworld’s mid-ocean ridges. This effort was initiated in 1993 with the support of the NSF-sponsored RIDGE program in recognition of the importance of bathymetry data as a baseline data set for understanding crustal creation and as an integrating framework for multidisciplinary studies at ridges. New Content and Structure In the last 3.5 years, we have approximately doubled the data holdings to include bathymetric coverage encompassing ~24,000 km of the world’s MOR (close to half the total length of the global system). Data recently added are from the Northern and Southern East Pacific Rise, Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Pacific-Antarctic Ridge, Southwest and Southeast Indian Ridges, the Gorda plate, and the Lau Basin. In addition to expanding the content of the synthesis, we have also migrated the compilation from its early structure—a series of flat files and static premade maps and grids—into a modern relational database with the capability to generate on-the-fly grids and images of user-defined regions. We are using an open source relational database server (PostgreSQL®) and Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) metadata standards.