Bathymetric data from the Tiran Straits

A high-resolution swath multibeam survey of the Tiran Straits (within Saudi waters) was conducted by OceanX aboard the R/V OceanXplorer. Data were acquired using hull-mounted Kongsberg EM712 and EM304 systems operating in the 70-100 kHz range calibrated with CTD (conductivity, temperature, depth) and expendable bathythermograph (XBT) profiles. The beam density of these systems was configured to deliver a minimum across-track resolution of 10 m. Survey speed was kept at 5-6 kn (~10 km/h) to limit the spacing between successive survey points. The bathymetric data were automatically screened for obvious outliers and, additionally, we manually identified and removed remaining spurious data points. From this dataset, we built a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the bathymetry by averaging raw data values to a 20 m horizontal grid.