Multibeam acoustic-backscatter data collected offshore of south-central California in support of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Cal DIG I offshore alternative energy project

Multibeam acoustic-backscatter data were collected offshore of Morro Bay, California, from 2016 to 2019. The data were collected during five separate multi-agency surveys for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)/Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) California Deepwater Investigations and Groundtruthing I (Cal DIG I) project, under a collaboration with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), using Simrad 700 series hull-mounted multibeam echosounders. Data in 2017 and 2018 were acquired by the NOAA Hydrographic Vessel Rainier (surveys H1309, H13151, and H13152). The 2018 data acquired by the Ranier were collected during USGS field activity 2018-641-FA. Additional data were collected in 2019 by the NOAA Hydrographic Survey Vessel Fairweather (survey W00479). Data from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography R/V Sally Ride collected in 2016 (survey SR1604) were used to fill in a small gap in the NOAA data. The acoustic-backscatter data from the five surveys were combined into a single raster and are provided as a 10-meter resolution GeoTIFF.