On-going Maintenance and Growth of the RIDGE Multibeam Synthesis Project

9530160 Ryan Ships from numerous agencies, oceanographic institutions, and nations are mapping the ocean floor with sophisticated sonar. These maps can be combined with other data such as rock type, animal type, and hydrothermal vent locations to created new maps that are extremely useful to scientists, teachers, and the business community. This approach has been successful and offers even more potential applications and broader distribution via the Internet. The principal investigators intend to maintain the current database and to add multibeam bathymetric data and gridded gravity data in order to expand the usefulness and completeness of the database.