GeoTIFF image of the backscatter intensity of the sea floor of the Hudson Shelf Valley (12-m resolution, Mercator, WGS 84)

The Hudson Shelf Valley is the submerged seaward extension of the ancestral Hudson River drainage system and is the largest physiographic feature on the Middle Atlantic continental shelf. The valley begins offshore of New York and New Jersey at about 30-meter (m) water depth, runs southerly and then southeasterly across the Continental Shelf, and terminates on the outer shelf at about 85-m water depth landward of the head of the Hudson Canyon. Portions of the 150-kilometer-long valley were surveyed in 1996, 1998, and 2000 using a Simrad EM1000 multibeam echosounder mounted on the Canadian Coast Guard ship Frederick G. Creed. The purpose of the multibeam echosounder surveys was to map the bathymetry and backscatter intensity of the sea floor of the valley, providing a framework for geologic, oceanographic, and geochemical studies. The data from the three surveys are combined to produce grids of bathymetry and backscatter intensity at 12-m resolution that cover the entire valley and the head of the Hudson Canyon. The mapping was done by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with support from the Canadian Hydrographic Service and the University of New Brunswick.

哈德逊陆架谷（Hudson Shelf Valley）是古哈德逊河水系被淹没的向海延伸部分，也是中大西洋大陆架上规模最大的地貌单元。该谷始于纽约与新泽西州近海约30米水深区域，先向南、随后向东南方向横穿大陆架，最终终止于哈德逊峡谷（Hudson Canyon）入口陆侧的外陆架区域，水深约85米。这条全长150千米的陆架谷部分区域于1996年、1998年及2000年被搭载于加拿大海岸警卫队“弗雷德里克·G·克里德”号科考船上的Simrad EM1000多波束测深仪开展勘测。本次多波束测深勘测的目标为绘制该陆架谷海底的水深地形与反向散射强度分布图，为地质、海洋学及地球化学研究提供基础框架。将三次勘测获取的数据进行整合，可生成覆盖整个陆架谷及哈德逊峡谷入口区域的12米分辨率水深地形与反向散射强度网格数据。本次制图工作由美国地质调查局（U.S. Geological Survey）与美国陆军工程兵团（U.S. Army Corps of Engineers）合作完成，并得到了加拿大水文局（Canadian Hydrographic Service）及新不伦瑞克大学（University of New Brunswick）的支持。