Multibeam bathymetric data at NOAA/NGDC

Multibeam bathymetry is being collected in exponentially increasing quantities, which are expected to be tens of terabytes per year in the near future. The National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC) is the national and international steward of marine geophysical data, including multibeam bathymetry, and has developed a MultiBeam Bathymetric Data Base (MBBDB) for acquiring, managing, and delivering these data over the Internet. NGDC manages a wide variety of geophysical data including trackline and survey data as two distinct types. Multibeam data tends to bridge these data models depending on scale and track pattern. The MBBDB system has been assembled from existing commercial, and government,-off-the-shelf (COTS and GOTS) software systems: ORACLE, ArclMS, Generic Napping Tools (GMT), MBSystem, and Autochart. The MBDDB will continue to grow and evolve, guided by feedback from our user community.