Acoustic geophysical data over the site of the proposed Mahuika Crater on the continental shelf southwest of New Zealand

This dataset contains acoustic geophysical data used to question the existence of the Mahuika Crater: a proposed impact depression 20.2 km wide lying on the continental shelf ~250 km SW of New Zealand. Multibeam echo sounder and sub-bottom profiler data, provided in this dataset,  across the published location of the crater was collected and synthesised with existing bathymetry data for the wider region to assess the validity of such a claim. We conclude that there is no geophysical basis for the existence for the Mahuika impact crater.

The multibeam echo sounder data was collected using a Kongsberg EM302 MBES. These data are provided in the Kongsberg raw *.all file format. 

Sub-bottom acoustic data was collected by a 3.5 kHz Knudsen chirp sub-bottom profiler. These data are provided in the Knudsen raw *.keb format and have also been converted to a *.sgy format using the Knudsen Conversion Utility software.