JAMSTEC multibeam surveys and submersible dives around the Hawaiian Islands: A collaborative Japan-USA exploration of Hawaii's deep seafloor

This database release, USGS Data Series 171, contains data collected during
four Japan-USA collaborative cruises that characterize the seafloor around the
Hawaiian Islands. The Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
(JAMSTEC) sponsored cruises in 1998, 1999, 2001, and 2002, to build a greater
understanding of the deep marine geology around the Hawaiian Islands. During
these cruises, scientists surveyed over 600,000 square kilometers of the
seafloor with a hull-mounted multibeam seafloor-mapping sonar system (SEA BEAM®
2112), observed the seafloor and collected samples using robotic and manned
submersible dives, collected dredge and piston-core samples, and performed
single-channel seismic surveys. To date, 32 research papers have been published
describing results from these cruises. For a list of these articles see the
bibliography.

This digital database was compiled with ESRI ArcInfo version 7.2.2 and
ArcGIS 9.0. The GIS files contain multibeam bathymetry, and acoustic
backscatter data in ESRI grid format, and dive, seafloor sampling, and siesmic
location data in ESRI shapefile format; ArcInfo-compatible GIS software is
therefore required to use the files of this database. Metadata for the GIS
files are available as text files. The GIS files were also symbolized and used
to create Portable Document Format (PDF) files that are ready to be printed.
Adobe Reader or other software that can translate PDFs is necessary to print
these files.

[Summary provided by the USGS.]