Mapping the “Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay”: Orthomosaics and ship locations from drone imagery in the Potomac River, Maryland

Shipwrecks hold significant historical, archaeological, and ecological value. In this dataset, we present two high-resolution orthomosaics and associated data capturing the so-called “Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay”, a prominent shipwreck assemblage near the eastern banks of the Potomac River, Maryland. Using small unoccupied aircraft systems (sUAS), we conducted aerial surveys at regional and individual wreck scales, imaging all 147 wrecks in the bay. Through structure-from-motion photogrammetric processing, we generated the highest-resolution georeferenced mosaics currently available for Mallows Bay. We used the regional orthomosaic to vectorize individual wrecks, with the resulting polygons linked to archaeological records from the Maryland Historic Trust. These data establish a baseline for the ecological, archaeological, and cultural resources at Mallows Bay. The orthomosaic outputs suit various applications, including image analysis and habitat mapping. The digital spatial records of individual wrecks can support field research and aid in monitoring the evolution of shipwrecks over time.